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WindowBlinds 5 Beta: Next Tuesday

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WindowBlinds 5 Beta: Next Tuesday

It's coming..

from WinCustomize Forums

The first public beta of WindowBlinds 5 is almost here.  Stardock released the alpha this week to its internal QA team to put the program through its compatibility testing before sending it out.  WindowBlinds 5's most notable new feature is the ability to support "glass" and full alpha blending of the title bar and border (no more jaggy borders).  The critical step has been to deliver this functionality without affecting performance for reasonably modern video cards.

In addiion, WindowBlinds 5 no longer has a "wbload.exe" and instead extends the painting of the Windows GUI in a more "native" way.  Or put another way, it has "zero foot print" in the same manner that the default bundled Windows themes (msstyles) use. 

Users who have Object Desktop will be able to try out the beta next Tuesday (Oct 4).  Users of WindowBlinds 4 will be able to upgrade to Object Desktop at a reduced price.  Moreover, users who purchased WindowBlinds 4 after September 1 will receive WindowBlinds 5 for free.

WindowBlinds 5 will also be designed to run on Windows Vista natively by the time Windows Vista ships (the beta of WindowBlinds 5 should run on the beta of Windows Vista though the Windows Vista GUI is still in a state of flux obviously).

65,041 views 155 replies
Reply #51 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hey, wait a minute. I've been ripped off. When I bought WindowBlinds 4, I was told all upgrades would be free. Also, I don't understand the logic behind awarding people who bought WB4 recently; they just gave you business, whereas I've been a loyal customer for almost 2 years! Give me a break! I quit.


You bought WB 4. Does that entitle you to WB v 5 ,6,7,8,9 etc?
Thats why everyone stresses so much how buying Object Desktop is so much wiser, cause it SO MUCH MORE.
Reply #52 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Upgrades are always free within the same main release number. So all upgrades witin the 4.x release version numbers are free to those who purchased WB. It is customary for Stardock and some other software vendors to provide a free upgrade to those who purchased so close to a new version as they would not be able to take advantage of free upgrades otherwise. It makes perfect sense that if they only had it a month that they can get the new version for free.
Since you have been a customer for almost two years you may have only been within the version 4.x version.
Getting two years of upgrades out of your purchase seems to be fair to me.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #54 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Hey, wait a minute. I've been ripped off. When I bought WindowBlinds 4, I was told all upgrades would be free. Also, I don't understand the logic behind awarding people who bought WB4 recently; they just gave you business, whereas I've been a loyal customer for almost 2 years! Give me a break! I quit.

Someone who purchases WindowBlinds gets all the updates for that version for free.  If you bought WindowBlinds 4 two years ago, you received 2 years of free updates to it that included pretty significant functionality.  Not bad for a $20 purchase.

Reply #55 from WinCustomize Forums Top
If you bought WindowBlinds 4 two years ago,

Has it been two years??
My, how time flies when your having fun.......
Reply #56 from WinCustomize Forums Top
What does he mean by loyal customer?
Reply #57 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hey, wait a minute. I've been ripped off. When I bought WindowBlinds 4, I was told all upgrades would be free. Also, I don't understand the logic behind awarding people who bought WB4 recently; they just gave you business, whereas I've been a loyal customer for almost 2 years! Give me a break! I quit.

I've never heard of any company that gives away the next version of their software for free because customers bought the old one.
Reply #58 from WinCustomize Forums Top
stardock.com/support: https://www.stardock.com/support/support.asp?product=11

"What about updates – do I have to pay for them, or are they free?

Updates are usually free. Customers who purchase standalone components like WindowBlinds are generally entitled to all releases in with the same major version number (so if you bought 3.0 you would be able to get 3.2 and 3.5 later, but not 4.0). For those who have bought a Object Desktop Network subscription, updates to all components are free throughout the period of your subscription"
Reply #59 from WinCustomize Forums Top
ethsza: At this time, WB5 is being built for XP and up. I would personally consider it unlikely that there will be a version of WB5 specifically for Windows 2000, for the simple reason that most people still using 2000 are not using hardware that would be able to take advantage of the new features at a reasonable speed. XP came out in 2001, after all, and there have been many changes since then.

To give people a genenral idea of performance . . . I have integrated graphics here. I am using a beta of WB5, and it works fine, certainly better than I would have expected. It is noticeably not quite as snappy as Blackcomb, but it is still smooth. However, not all integrated graphics systems are equal (this is an ATI Xpress 200, one of the best available right now), and if your system is a not new and you do not have a separate graphics card, or if you do but the design of that card is more than three years old, you may feel a difference. There are limits to how much can be done to improve this - a faster CPU doesn't help all that much, as often it is the video or system memory that slows things down.

At this point WB5 is also noticably snappier than Windows Vista's translucent windows, on the same hardware. Of course, that has a year to go, and the drivers I am using are the first betas from ATI, so perhaps this is not a fair test . . . but then WindowBlinds development isn't going to stop in that year, either.
Reply #60 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Does anyone know where/how I can find when my OD Network subscription expires? I can't remember when I last renewed it.
Reply #61 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Oh, and I can't emphasise this enough - having semi-transparent borders is also, really, really cool. I forsee some very interesting designs that you won't want to miss out on!
Reply #62 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Does anyone know where/how I can find when my OD Network subscription expires? I can't remember when I last renewed it.

Double-click Registration Info in Stardock Central, then click Update. It should confirm your registration, and display your expiration date.
Reply #64 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Can't wait to try out WB5- the screenshots look fantastic! Will finally yield skinners the ultimate frontier of windows skinning: alpha-transparent window-borders/drop-shadows/anti-aliased edges... Will be revolutionary
Reply #68 from WinCustomize Forums Top
So the story repeats itself again thanks to WindowBlinds... We'll be able to try the new interface before the release of Windows Vista... I remember when I was using Windows 98/Me with the Windows XP interface. Great!
Reply #69 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Awesome! Can't wait! I hope Tuesday will bring on some new skins utilizing the new features as well!
Reply #71 from WinCustomize Forums Top
are only the window borders transparent? or does that include the TOOLBARS like winv?


Yeah I'd like to know also, as it would be pretty good if most of the interface could support transparency. Some interesting things could come of it.
Reply #73 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thx for the answer GreanReaper. I have XP at home, and Win2k in the office on a fairly new HP notebook, that would meet the system requirements.

The reason why our (and many other) corporation didn't upgrade from Win2k to XP is that XP does not offer significant benefits in a corporate environment for official work purposes, (they thought I went crazy when I mentioned the nice GUI still each time ppl keep on asking what OS am I running ) so the costs of a migration/testing of core business applications/redesigning remote login and whatever scripts/deploying the new OS in a 60.000+ employee environment was not taken. I guess I'm not the only one stuck with win2k this way.

I'll also get stuck with the todays WB skin offering, as I bet, from next tuesday (BTW happy birthday essorant) noone will develop new skins for the 4.x platform.
Reply #74 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'll also get stuck with the todays WB skin offering, as I bet, from next tuesday (BTW happy birthday essorant) noone will develop new skins for the 4.x platform.

I very much hope that this will not be the case. It should not that hard to provide non-translucent border options as well. Indeed, the performance implications of using translucency make it quite a good idea to avoid it unless it is necessary to the design of the skin, in the same way it's a bad idea to use UIS2 with shaped borders if you can use UIS1 with square ones.
Reply #75 from WinCustomize Forums Top
In the current alpha state, non-translucent borders are a requirement, to maximise backwards compatability. Also, tool windows still use those for their borders, instead of per-pixel. So new skins developed for WB5 are very likely to still work ok on 4.x.