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WindowBlinds 5 Beta 1B released

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WindowBlinds 5 Beta 1B released

Lots of fixes and tuning

from WinCustomize Forums

WindowBlinds 5 Beta 1B was released today. It is a major update and improvement over yesterday's beta and should clear up most of the issues for those users who ran into problems.  But it's more than just a bug fix, additional performance improvements have been put in as well. 

Users of WindowBlinds 5 have also reported that it is significantly faster than WindowBlinds 4.6 (which in itself was already very fast).  That's because WindowBlinds 5's engine has been further optimized for drawing and resizing and taking advantage of the latest video cards.

A few notes about WindowBlinds 5 Beta 1b (4.90b):

  1. We don't recommend using it with WindowFX yet.  We have a new WindowFX about to go up that has been optimized to work with WindowBlinds 5.
  2. Skin changing should be faster.
  3. Right-Click on title bar override to make it roll up the window has been added for Alpha-Blended title bars.
  4. RunDLL32 issue resolved.
  5. WinZip issue resolved.
  6. Min/Max settings respect settings.
  7. WB Config now has support for helping those with ATI 9000 that have corrupted mouse buttons.
  8. Corruption with Kol's WinVista skin has been resolved.
  9. Taskbar corruption (graphical) issues should be fixed.
  10. LogonStudio compatibility issue resolved.

All in all, a busy day for the WindowBlinds team.  You need to have Object Desktop (www.objectdesktop.com) in order to get access to the beta. 

69,264 views 153 replies
Reply #26 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'm not having any major problems with WB5. Noticed the tray icon for WB is gone now and when I load any WB5 ready skin any tray icon menus seem to disappear leaving only the shadow after about 4 seconds.

I'm really excited by the possibilities of what I've seen so far. Keep up the good work!
Reply #27 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Greetings,

Sorry that my knowledge on software is next to zero. I was just wondering if lacking of "per pixel" feature support at my IBM ThinkPad T40 (with ATI Radeon 7500 display card) also implied that there was no "glass" (transparency) effect available from WB5.

I could not tell the difference between WB5 and WB4 at my system (didn't know where went wrong, though I checked with the Troubleshooting info at WBconfig

Do we still need to upgrade from WB4 to WB5 even there is no "glass" effect supported based on our hardware configuration (don't know how to get embedded ATI display card to provide "per pixel" feature for WB5)?

Many thanks !!
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #28 from WinCustomize Forums Top
im not finding the 4.9b update for beta shouldnt it show up in sd central
Reply #29 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This is what I get, can anyone help me...

WindowBlinds 5 BETA Troubleshooting Report:

STATUS : WB+ SRV+ HLP+ UI+

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

WindowBlinds has not been activated correctly on this PC. Please activate it from SDC.

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.
Reply #30 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Noticed the tray icon for WB is gone now


Citizen MBoyer, I think the system tray icon has been eliminated for good....according to what others have told me - since this new build eliminates any dedicated processes it runs as part of the system...no tray icon...because it's NOT an additional system process. Just wanted to pass it on if you haven't heard it yet.

Just a cautious optimistic observation - my entire system seems to be running faster - ALOT FASTER; files & folders/sub folders open up at JET SPEED...most other functions seem to be working the best I've ever had since owning my computer system & installing this new build. I'm still only using a 32 bit processor: AMD 3200Xp, WD Rator HDD 10,000rpm, XFX 6600GT vid card & Corsair XMS. I think from the post's alot of other people are seeing better results now than the first release - but there's still problems....hope they're resolved soon. Does ANYONE ELSE notice this difference in speed???? And I don't mean just in the WB Configuration applying skins! Any feedback would be appreciated!! THX!
Reply #32 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I need help, when i search for updates on stardock, it tells me windowblinds 5 beta b is ready to update, but when i click update now, it keeps the same version i have (4.6), i've tried it many times and the same thing happens over and over, can anyone help???
Reply #33 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Does ANYONE ELSE notice this difference in speed???? And I don't mean just in the WB Configuration applying skins! Any feedback would be appreciated!! THX!


My old friend George,

Sup man? .. We post too much I think, but who cares. Lol. To answer your question my brothers' PC that I built and my built PC are both BLAZIN' with speed. I do notice the WB5 beta being integrated has increased the overall speed of windows by at least 2X.

My PC:
Windows XP Professional w/ SP2 (Newest Build)
Intel P4 2Ghz 512L2 Cache
768MB RAM (I need to get that up to 1 Gig..)
On-Board Intel Extreme 48MB Stupid P.O.S. On-Board Graphics
120GB Maxtor IDE HDD

Brothers PC:
Windows XP Professional w/ SP2 (Newest Build)
AMD Sempron 3300+ (2GHz)
2GB RAM (So what, he's broke now for 2 years.)
ATI Raedon 9800
250GB Seagate IDE HDD, 300GB Maxtor IDE HDD
Reply #34 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Laoran, Thx so much for the response!!! Yes...i'd say about 2X increase or thereabouts. I can't believe your vid card has only 48mb of memory.... ....I mean gosh... ...at least your brother has a ATI Radeon 9800!! I just don't know WHAT kind of SPEED you'll have if you can upgrade to something with 128mg's!!! I assumed you have an AGP bus - is it 4X.... .....??? Thx!!!
Reply #35 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Waited until today to download. Stunning. The speed is very obvious on my system So far so good. I am still amazed by how good Stardock is as well as the whole Wincustomize community.
Reply #36 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Good, rundll32 and logonguix problem has vanished.

Next thing could be to fix the erroneous rollup behaviour, not all windows get rolled up completely (windows media player, Visual C++ .NET, Opera,... , at least using the 5imple skin)

Some OpenGL Buffers (Maya) seem to get screwed up when alpha-borders have been covering them, the border part sometimes "burns" into the buffers. Also some other strange OpenGL behaviuor (buffers becoming copied to some place outside of their applications) is noticeable.

Somebody owning a game that can be run in a windowed OpenGL mode could try to reproduce the errors above.

The skins apply faster, it feels better.
Reply #37 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Cool! Fast update! Doesn't seem to fix the problem most of us seems to be having though: not being able to apply any skin at all.

Update: The activate.exe trick actually works! Double cool!
Reply #39 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I must say that 4.90b[b]003 has done it better - everything works better and faster~!
Thanks Stardock and all those that are working on the new wb 5 - congrats.!!!
Job extra well done and quick too....

SGT
Reply #41 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Everythings great except for the IE7 address bar still not skinning.
Reply #43 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Anyone else having issues with IconPackager not being able to apply IP's? Fortunately it allowed me to apply Luna Default, but that's it.
Reply #44 from WinCustomize Forums Top
~ I've been trying to update to the latest version through SDCentral but I get an error telling me it "Failed to validate my subscription or product information." I was able to update to the latest Skinstudio version without such an error but not WB. I've been a subscriber for many years so there shouldn't be a problem with my subscription. Can someone give me some insight on what might be causing this? I've been foaming at the mouth waiting to get my hands on the newest version.

~ Thanks in advance!
Reply #45 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Initial Beta worked here after uninstalling v4 first, but had problem after resuming from screensaver (I use Webshots) the taskbar waasn't showing and had to give machine the 3 fingered salute.
Beta 1B doesn't work here at all, cannot change skin to anything, and barfs if I press the WindowsBlinds button.

Any ideas if and when NVIDIA will be updating drivers for the FX 5200, don't really want to spend more money on a new Graphics card.

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer VIA
System Model K7VM4
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~2082 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. P2.30, 30/12/2003
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
Total Physical Memory 1,024.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 214.01 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 2.40 GB

Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 256Mb
Driver Version 6.14.10.4471

Reply #46 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Whoa!! From 0 to 60 in one day !!! Works fine so far
Reply #47 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Initial Beta worked here after uninstalling v4 first, but had problem after resuming from screensaver (I use Webshots) the taskbar waasn't showing and had to give machine the 3 fingered salute.
Beta 1B doesn't work here at all, cannot change skin to anything, and barfs if I press the WindowsBlinds button.


did you try what it says at comment #7 it might work!!
Reply #48 from WinCustomize Forums Top

If Wbconfig crashes then you are missing files and you will need to reinstall WB.

Reply #49 from WinCustomize Forums Top
When ever i change skins i get gost tabs on start bar is there a way to stop it doing that

(only happens when i use WB5 skins)??