When I try to apply a skin....

I get a message that says...missing skin data

When I try to apply skins it I get an error message that says "There appears to be no .uis file in this skin. Are you sure it is a windowblinds skin?" what does this mean!?
1,745 views 1 replies
Reply #1 Top
This may mean the skin was not properly installed, either by virtue of an installation glitch or error in the skin.

There are several ways to install a skin, but experience has led me to use this approach as the most reliable:

I always download the .wba file to a folder on my hard drive by right-clicking the skin's "Download" button & selecting "Save Target As...". This has the added benefit of having an original copy stored locally should I ever need to re-install it... no need to go find it on the web again. In case you don't know, .wba files are standard .zip files with the extension changed to .wba to allow WBConfig to be the default handler.

I then open WBConfig, select "Install skin from disk..." and navigate to the downloaded .wba file, selecting it and clicking on "Open". That "installs" the skin (basically unzips the .wba file contents to a new subfolder in the C:\Program Files\Stardock\Object Desktop\Windowblinds folder, naming the subfolder with the designated skin name). The skin list should auto-refresh at that point and you should be able to scroll to the skin you have just installed and apply it. You can also simply double click the downloaded .wba file in Explorer, then open either Display Properties or WBConfig to select & apply it.

One of the files that should appear in that subfolder after the install is "xxxxxx.uis" where xxxxxx = the skin name. This is the text configuration file that WB reads to know what graphics to use where & with what adjustments or attributes when applying the skin - without it, WB has no clue what to paint where. Occasionally, files get named incorrectly by the author - the skin name listed in the Personality section has to match exactly the folder name, for instance, and sometimes a typo will occur. Or a filename may get whacked during the unzipping process. Either way, WB may be looking for "Skinname.uis" when the file is actually named "skinName.uis". Using SkinStudio to create a skin is good insurance against this kind of inadvertent error, but not all skinners use it, for a variety of reasons.

Hope this gets you pointed in the right direction.

Cheers,
Daiwa