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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 #76 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I finally tried it...but first unloaded WB (4.6) and IconPackager, and any other Stardock products..then I updated SDC to latest, and ran the update for WB5.
I held my breath at restart and....

It seems to be working just fine, as far as I can tell. Thanks so much Stardock developers! You are the best!

WindowBlinds 5 BETA Troubleshooting Report:

STATUS : WB+ SRV+ HLP+ UI+

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

You have one monitor in total.

( SyncMaster 213T ) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
'NetMeeting driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV1', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.
'RDPDD Chained DD' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV2', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.
Reply #77 from WinCustomize Forums Top
it's good to see that bugs are being fixed so promptly. But there's something that's been bugging me for a while... what about the premium skins? I revisited the old Pixtudio site and found that the PixOS suite hasn't been updated in eons. In fact, it never got updated since it was released according to their site. The PixOS WB skin is perhaps one of the few handfuls of skins that're designed well... not overly bulky and not too minimalistic. Will some of the older classic skins get a refit or update to take advantage of WB5's featureset? Or perhaps the question should be... Do premium skins ever get updated anymore?
ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #78 from WinCustomize Forums Top
MUCH better than prev. beta...impressive! Now let's see what the skin designers can do with the new capabilities! A note - 1 small problem I have is that the 2 checkboxes at the bottom of the wbconfig troubleshooting section...I can/t read them!(just black stripes)..I wonder what they say...? Other than that, all seems to work fine so far - YEAH!!! Well done to all at Stardock! thanks!


WindowBlinds 5 BETA Troubleshooting Report:

STATUS : WB+ SRV+ HLP+ UI+

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

You have 2 monitors.

(Dell P991) 1 is attached to RADEON 9700 PRO
(Plug and Play Monitor) 2 is attached to RADEON 9700 PRO - Secondary
'NetMeeting driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV1', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.
'RDPDD Chained DD' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV2', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.
Reply #79 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I have is that the 2 checkboxes at the bottom of the wbconfig troubleshooting section...I can/t read them!(just black stripes)..I wonder what they say...?


Left box: Never use per pixel borders on a skin

Right box: Enable if you have corrupted titlebar buttons & text backgrounds

Hope that helps!
Reply #80 from WinCustomize Forums Top
So far so good =D

Feedback from my sytem (XP Sp2, P4 3.2GHz, 2GB Ram, ATI Radeon 9800XT):

a. Overall very fast and it feels quite stable for being a beta release.

b. It took a while to find the "Apply this skin" button etc. since they are
not in a very intuitive place.

c. Loading new skins was confusing since no matter how many times I loaded
a skin it didn't appear with the rest of the skins in the main window.
Only by pooking around and finally finding it hiding in another window
was I able to apply KoL_'s Vista v2.0 which works teriffic in WB 5b =D

d. Did I say it was fast?

Congratulations to Stardock team for a very interesting update!
Reply #81 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I found also a strange bug using Photoshop CS2 (I don't know if it's WB related, but using classic UXTheme.dll I don't experience such a problem): if I have multiple pictures opened in a different windows, clicking on the titlebar of everyone of them won't select it, and only the first one which I have opened remains selected)


i have the same problem, so probably is WB related. if you click on the actual image under the title bar it will select that window..so i suspect it's something to do with the semi-transparent title bars within the photoshop workspace, and clicking them doesn't tell photoshop that that window is selected...
Reply #82 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I use a Tablet PC, Toshiba M200 and most of the Stardock customizing programs have worked extremely well. WB 4.6 worked just fine, but when I installed WB 5, I had nothing but problems. I was only able to try a couple of skins before system hung. Skins for the taskbar didn't work right: the Tablet PC Input Panel never "skinned"...there was just a black hole around the icon. OmniPage 15 and WB didn't get along at all...OP immediately went on the blink and froze. I could barely unhang the system enough to restart. Once I restarted the same problems began to manifest, so I sent back to the WC site and reinstalled 4.6. I'm stable again, but guess I'll have to wait for a few more bugs to be ironed out.

My system is a 1.5 GHz Centrino, 2 GB ram, XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 SP2.

The NVidia Geforce FX GO5200 card in my Tablet is only a 32mb card...will I ever be able to run WB 5?

This looks like it will be another really excellent Stardock product (even if I can't run it!). Thanks for your work, Stardock.

Reply #83 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Not up to par yet! On my home machine, WB doesn't load. I can open WBConfig under a limited account if I run as myself (administrator). I tried setting my daughter's limited account to an administrative account but it still won't run. Neither of the above would actually change a skin. Rolling back to 4.6 fixes the problem.

sigh
Reply #85 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Question:

Is the Taskbar only faking transparency (with a snap of the background) since it doesn't show the objects behind it?
Reply #86 from WinCustomize Forums Top
another small bug (and i'm sorry if it's been reported before)..

i'm using the 5imple alpha skin....i used to, when copying or moving between folders, to drag the item from one folder to another, and i like to drop the item on the title bar of the target folder (this enables me to make sure it drops into that folder and not a folder within that folder)....i am not allowed to do this with WB5..it does work if i drop it onto the status bar at the bottom instead, which is not semi-transparent
Reply #87 from WinCustomize Forums Top
lo YangLeo Leo

You can get ObjectDesktop here:
https://www.stardock.com/products/odnt/
Reply #88 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I've got a different problem. When WB 5 starts up, the Windows ODBC Data Source Administrator asking me to pick a DSN. It appears that WindowBlinds is trying to open a database of skins, and can't.

In the middle of writting this, I discovered something else strange. The ODBC Administrator says I have absolutely no drivers installed. Normally, I would expect to see a number of ODBC drivers installed, such as for MS SQL Server, Access, etc. But I've got none.

I am running XP Pro SP2. I downloaded the component checker, and it says it finds MDAC 2.8 SP1 properly installed. I tried downloading MDAC 2.8 SP1 from MS' site to try to reinstall, but it won't let me re-install. So, I'm stumped. Anybody have any clue? Thanks!
Reply #89 from WinCustomize Forums Top
WindowBlinds 5 BETA Troubleshooting Report:

STATUS : WB+ SRV+ HLP+ UI+

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

You have one monitor in total.

(Plug and Play Monitor) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
'NetMeeting driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV1', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.
'RDPDD Chained DD' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV2', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the beta but continue to have problems running other applications, specifically Adobe Acrobat. Don't know if anyone has any other ideas?
Reply #90 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I was one of the first to “b!tch” the other day when WB5 was released and it trashed my fresh install…… I uninstalled it and went back to 4.6 and said screw it, I’ll wait for more beta testing to be completed. After reading all the post and all the problems it was clear that a lot of people didn’t have any/many issues and were quite impressed with it………. So I decided to attempt the install again tonight, and once again it trashed the box. I went back to sdcentral and did an uninstall. Rather then reinstalling 4.6 I decided to copy the contents of the WB directory to another drive and then delete everything the WB dir. Reinstalled the beta and KOOL, it worked fine! Fine is not really a fair statement, it worked fricking great! It appears to be lean, mean and fast….. It was already a fast box (X2 4800+, WD Raptors in raid, ATI X850XT) but the screen writes are just amazing, everything just pops!

Like many of us I had a lot of very kool skins that I had incorporated into suites that WB5 won’t run, but it’s only a matter of time before the Authors re-write them so no big deal. The performance of WB5 is worth the wait…….

To all the Stardock guys, great work and I thank you ……… Three cheers!
Reply #91 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I just installed the lastest beta because I didn't want to go through the same hell everyone else did with the first one. Anyway, here's my troubleshooting report:

WindowBlinds 5 BETA Troubleshooting Report:

STATUS : WB+ SRV+ HLP+ UI+

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC

Your machine does not support per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

This is because :

Your computer graphics hardware does not support acceleration of per pixel alpha. WindowBlinds requires this for per pixel alphablended borders as without it performance would be poor. Please see if you can obtain new drivers for your graphics hardware. Recent ATI & NVIDIA boards should support this feature. Onboard graphics tend not to.

You have one monitor in total.

(Plug and Play Monitor) 1 is attached to ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 7500
'ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 7500' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAY2', but is not attached to the desktop.
'NetMeeting driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV1', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.
'RDPDD Chained DD' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV2', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.
Reply #92 from WinCustomize Forums Top
BobW I have the same video card. Are you sure it's 256Mb? Mine is a NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128Mb. Anyway go here to get a new driver http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp . For XP Pro it's version 78.01.
Reply #93 from WinCustomize Forums Top
The second beta installed well and works flawlessly (the speed is amazing). I have found three little problems (not really bugs, but programs that skinned fine with 4.6 but now have problems). First, Access 2003 doesn't support transparency (it skins, but without the transparent part). This isn't surprising, since it didn't work right with fx before. Winzip (both 9 and the 10 beta) skin well enough, but will not perform extractions (when I excluded it, it began working again). Finally, the file menu in Acrobat Pro 7 now causes the application to crash. I've also had no luck getting the right-click roll-up override to work. Everything else works (and looks) great!
Reply #94 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I had to uninstall on my home machine because WB completely broke Visual Studio, and wouldn't let me switch back to XP or Royale themes (could only do Classic, and it would go back to WB on reboot/relog).

GPU is a 7800 GTX with Nvidia's beta 80.xx drivers from yesterday.

Adding VS 2003 to the Exceptions list and saying "Ignore and do not skin" didn't help.
Reply #95 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thanks to Sir Green Armani (above) for the clear description of haow to get it up and running. One note though - double clicking the theme did not work for me, it did work if I clicked Apply Theme.

In any case, I finally got it working and boy is it sweet and fast. I have an older GeForce4 440GO 32mB on my laptop and the transparency works perfect. Awesome job as always Stardock
Reply #96 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Since installing WB5 – 4.9 I’ve not been able to install any new skins that appear to have successfully downloaded, but don’t appear in “My Skins”.
Another big problem is icons for programs that run in the background and should appear in the task bar next to the clock don’t appear in about half of the skins now.
I’ve switched back to WB 4.60.048 and now I still have the problem with icon no shows in the task bar, but I am able to download and install new skins.

All the info in WB5 showed the installation to be successful; I’m running XPSP2, an ATI Radeon 800XT AIW, with the latest 5.9 driver.

I believe this WB5 version was released way too early, and will require a lot of revision before it can be considered a product worth paying for.
Reply #97 from WinCustomize Forums Top
After a difficult start it works great. I'm using it about one day now and it's fast. What a good job.

WB-team you are the best!!!
Reply #98 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Very nice guys...just installed it on my network pc at work and its amazing!

Will there be an option in the final version to change the transparancy of a restored window? Its a little too see thru at the moment

Maybe you could add some blur effects to make it a little clearer

Cheers guys!
MOZ

NOTE - I have just noticed that the scroll bar in a drop down menu on a web page is very laggy....just sticks a bit - its not smooth like other scroll bars - just thought i should let you know
Reply #99 from WinCustomize Forums Top
i'm having a problem with adobe acrobat reader. when i click on the 'view' or 'edit' menus, the program crashes. otherwise it works fine, and everything else looks really great under wb5!