Using TuneUp Utilities to customize desktop

From what I was reading: you can use bootskins, logons, and iconpackages. It says nothing about WB. What I read makes it appear it only repaints the colors.

Thanks Sir! I read that too. When installed, it also found old StyleXP themes and icon packages. Now I am looking for the theme for ISKIN here but searches come up blank. So I am using the Panther visual style that is pretty close, but not exactly. But Styler2 is pretty much a scaled down(or up? as it does icons too)version of windowblinds. Supported file imports are .tvs (it's own filetype), .msstyles, .zip&rar, and .exe.

The trick is TuneUp Utilities just hacks the uxtheme.dll to allow for non-Microsoft .msstyle files to be used. WidnowBlinds is its own proprietary format, and so you would have to take a .wba file (basically a renamed .zip) and build your own .msstyle from it to use TuneUp to apply that theme.

so you would have to take a .wba file (basically a renamed .zip) and build your own .msstyle from it to use TuneUp to apply that theme.

Which you can do with SkinStudio, but you would have more features using WB!

Which you can do with SkinStudio, but you would have more features using WB!

Uh, no, I don't believe you can. As far as I know, SkinStudio does not do anything to create a .msstyle to a .wba. It will change a .msstyle to a .wba so you can use it without having to patch the uxtheme.dll, but not the other way. Folks who port WB themes to MsStyles have to do it 'by hand' if I understand things correctly.

Sorry, not what I am saying, BlueDev...But you have the capability of porting an MsStyle, if you can extract the style...

Sorry, not what I am saying, BlueDev...But you have the capability of porting an MsStyle, if you can extract the style...

Right, of course you can do that. But what the original poster wants to do is take an existing .wba and convert it to a .msstyle and use TuneUp Utilities to apply that, rather than use WB. So I don't see what porting something to WB has to do with this thread.

Seeing as how it would be potentially illegal for Styler to support the creation and/or the conversion of .wba files, I would highly suggest you get out of this limited market quickly, and use WindowBlinds itself. It skins faster and better than the uxtheme.dll, and is actually legal, not illegal, and doesnt violate your EULA. (StyleXP does)

Just my thoughts...

thanks to all of u for your comments, and I am thinking the best thing to do is to just buy into the stardock suite to do all wincusomizations there, I guess. I was just trying to figure out a way to cut down on the # of programs needed to customize an interface for a network of music studio computers. But I need a little help...perhaps I should start a new thread...but anyhow...

I am a user of objectdoc, which i just upgraded to plus, and it's very nice.

I use loginstudio and bootskin for the the interface on startup, then once the interface is up I have these nice docs to hold the icons.

Now what do I use to modify the way XP dialogs look? (skinning the explorer shell?). Is that possible?

And I guess I need to download icon packages to find a suite of icons that macth my theme.

But I am not sure how far a theme goes and what to use for that either.

Well, thanks...u will be hearing from me. I think this forum is great
jigs

programs needed to customize an interface for a network of music studio computers

Skinning seems a minimal way to 'customize an interface' for a particular application (i.e music). I would've though you'd use DesktopX to really tailor the interface. I can see how WB might augment that, but I don't see dressing up the windows really affecting UI productivity significantly. I'm open to be enlightened, however!

thanks Chris. look is everything here and when clients come in we don't want them to see just the normal XP desktops. So the plan is to have:
* company logo as desktop
* objectdocs tailered for our biz (productivity part, tabs for promos, projects, etc.)
* cool widgets that animate the desktop abit and make people think wow, these guys are cool.
Well, i've got the entire stardock suite now and i just about understand it all. way too many programs however...i can't get stardock central to work yet, maybe that pulls it all together..but things are good. My big question will be that once I get one desktop completely setup using bootskin, logonStudio, a theme, windowblinds, custom icons, objectdocs, objectbar, etc. will be "how to replicate the entire sheebang on another PC without a lot of work." any thoughts on that?
thanks!!!!
jigs

Herojig,
I would suggest using DesktopX for the little widgets, they're not hard to make and can be scripted using either VBscript or JavaScript!
And ....

....how to replicate the entire sheebang on another PC without a lot of work." any thoughts ....

would be to build a suite using "Theme Manager" which is part of OD. Then load the suite on each computer. but remember each computer will have to be running each application needed (ie. Logon, WB, DX, OB, etc).

Hope this helps.
Show us shots when you're finished making it all!