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Perspectives: Themes & Skins and Windows XP

By Nate Mook, BetaNews

November 6, 2001, 11:09 PM

Microsoft Windows XP Operating System: Usability Study

David Worthington
BetaNews, Inc.

Professor James E. Tomlinson
Department of Communication Studies
Bloomsburg University

October 8, 2001

In the Study
Bloomsburg University students were recruited for this research from communication classes. Student volunteers were randomly divided into two groups: Group 1 was asked to complete a series of 30 tasks using the Windows 98 Operating System. Group 2 was asked to complete the same series of tasks using the new Windows XP Operating System. Students were assembled in a Bloomsburg University Computer Lab, the Windows 98 Group separately from Windows XP Group. This research was conducted between September 27 and October 4, 2001.

As instructions for each item were given to participants, words were carefully selected so as to not 'tip off' research subjects as to how they might do each task. For example, rather than tell participants to 'shut down the computer,' they were told 'you are done using your computer for the day and don’t want to leave it on overnight. Please do what is necessary to do so.'

Participants were asked to 'rate’ each assigned item as to its 'ease of use,’ on a scale from 1 to 7 (where 1 means 'very difficult’ and 7 means 'very easy’). Thus, for the purposes of this study, 'ease of usability’ is defined as a higher number in the scores reported by the research participants. Data reported below are organized by task and provides the following information:

  • the Mean (average) responses for each group
  • the Range of responses for each group
  • the Mode (the most frequent responses) for each group
  • any demonstrated 'Advantage’ for either of the Operating Systems
A brief narrative evaluation of the data follows the presentation of data for each item.

This report is divides the 30 task items used in the study into five sections:

I. Functionality

II. Management of Audio Files

III. Management of Digital Photography

IV. Networking

V. Conclusions

Continued. . .
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next >>

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By chris_kabuki

posted Nov 13, 2001 - 6:27 PM

Well, now that the final of WindowBlinds 3.0 has been released, it's time to give it a test to see if it does in fact perform like Brad said it would - no more excuses can be made as this is final =)

For those interested:
http://download.cnet.com...461954-100-7862330.html

(Link taken from www.windowblinds.net)

Score: 0

By oino

posted Nov 9, 2001 - 9:35 AM

Please help my site get going

http://www.skinit.org

Come post your work and download other peoples work.

login screen, Themes, Wallpaper..

Score: 0

By fewt

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 12:58 PM

I remember skinning doom.. I remember skinning castle wolfenstein also. ;-) I don't think they were the first (yes I know you said skin characters) Anyone remember barney doom? muHAHAHAHA

Score: 0

By chris_kabuki

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 5:54 PM

Heheheh barney doom and porn-covered walls =) Ahh the good old days!

Score: 0

By fewt

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 1:01 PM

Thinking back further I remember changing a few bits with my track and sector editor, and making my Little Computer People dude's hair blue on my C64 ;-) Maybe that was the first real "skin"? Anyone else remember one?

Score: 0

By Sppire

posted Nov 12, 2001 - 11:11 AM

I remember the PROMPT command in DOS.

Score: 0

By chris_kabuki

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 6:37 AM

Nothing suprising for those that aren't new to skinning and it's not really a suprise given the Author works for StarDock. He even says himself that it wouldn't be possible for him not to be biast.

It would have been nice for him to give a bit more information in relation to the deal StarDock made with Microsoft to make them the only ones to provide tools for skinning XP, i.e. make sure no-one else can by digitally signing the files.

It was also interesting that Style XP and StyleBuilder wasn't included/mentioned anywhere! www.tgtsoft.com for those that are interested in making their own skins without needing a memory hogging program running at all times (aka WindowBlinds) or any 3rd party program for that matter!

Score: 0

By lekim

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 12:51 PM

i wanna know the extent to which stardock worked with microsoft. judging from the quality of windowblinds i think it may have been just 1 meeting.
tgtsoft had their meeting with microsoft too. microsoft has nothing to gain from closing their uxtheme.dll from hacks (if that's at all possible). and as far as i can tell, microsoft has no problem with style xp as long as users are informed of the change being made to their computer and there is a way to uninstall it. their may be a problem if tgtsoft starts charging for it though.

Score: 0

By chris_kabuki

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 5:53 PM

Yeah I noticed that TGTSoft had a meeting with Microsoft after which they released Beta 3 of Style XP. As for charging, I don't think they will charge for Style XP but will charge for StyleBuilder which is fair enough and probably a good way of going about it.

Score: 0

By nate

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 7:27 AM

Also, WindowBlinds doesn't actually sign themes. It substitutes its own engine for uxtheme.dll, and uses its own theme architecture. It has some advantages, as it can skin *all* programs instead of just XP-supported ones, and it can potentially speed up the themes. However that also means you get themes made by anyone, and badly made themes can cause your system to crash and hog memory -- not WindowBlinds' fault necessarily -- but still troublesome. This is why MS didn't open their theme architecture (it had to be hacked) and why they only have one alternative theme (with multiple color styles). Hope that clears things up.

Score: 0

By nate

posted Nov 8, 2001 - 3:26 AM

My mistake, I meant to say it substitutes its own engine for the theming engine in SVCHOST which uses uxtheme.dll, not uxtheme.dll itself (which is just a DLL). WB3 actually makes use of uxtheme.dll with its own engine.

Score: 0

By nate

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 7:20 AM

Perception is everything these days it seems..

uxtheme.dll loads up as a service to support themes in XP -- turn it off, and use WindowBlinds' small memory resident program instead and you've got the EXACT same thing. Stardock claims to have a better engine than uxtheme as well (although I haven't seem firm numbers yet). Besides, not everyone wants a program to hack their sysem files. Plus, itll be a waste for people to make skins and then have MS fix uxtheme.dll in XP SP1 so it's not hackable. Not trying to tout WindowBlinds, just trying to get your facts straight. But more on that (including Microsoft's reaction) coming soon :)

Score: 0

By chris_kabuki

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 6:54 PM

nate, I'll respond to both your comments here, just makes it easier.

Firstly, although you did say that you're not trying to tout WindowBlinds, you will have to excuse me for thinking otherwise, especially given that way you talk about it in such light whilst calling the competition nothing more than a hack. Maybe StarDock have a good bond with BetaNews, who knows. For the purpose of this comment I'll ignore those 'generalisations' and just assume that you were giving your own opinion.

The difference between how WindowBlinds works and how Style XP works from my understanding is that both use uxtheme.dll and WindowBlinds has a seperate dll to perform the more advanced things that uxtheme.dll does not support (WinCustomize.com did a 'feature' on this if you call call it that. Like you in a way, they were very quick to dismiss Style XP and promote everything StarDock...funny that, given they are who they are).

Do yes, Style XP does hack or as I prefer to call it does patch the uxtheme.dll so that the digital signature check is ignored. TGT Soft have had at least one meeting with Microsoft and MS have had no problem with what TGT Soft are doing, or at least that is what I am led to believe given that Microsoft haven't forced TGT Soft to stop patching their files etc. Therefore I don't believe you're right in saying that creating skins using Style XP will be a waste of time when MS upgrade uxtheme.dll. Of course this all depends on what StarDock do now to try and make sure TGT Soft don't get anywhere.

"Stardock claims to have a better engine than uxtheme as well"... It wouldn't be very good marketing if they claimed otherwise =) I can't remember the last time a company claimed that their products were worse that some other companies products.

"and it can potentially speed up the themes"... That's another one of those statements that I haven't heard much proof of from actual users. In fact as much as anyone loves or hates WindowBlinds, the one thing they have in common is that they agree that the whole UI is slowed down as a result of using WindowBlinds. Now this may be due to badly packaged skins etc etc, but this argument doesn't stand ground because skin artists will continue to release 'badly packaged skins'.

"badly made themes can cause your system to crash and hog memory -- not WindowBlinds' fault necessarily"... A theme shouldn't crash your system.

Therefore, as a final word, I think that Style XP is perfect for what it does, i.e. allowing users to create their own skins using the native skinning engine, whereas WindowBlinds is perfect for those that want to do more than the native XP skinning engine will allow. My experiences with WindowBlinds have been very poor (and this was with version 2, which StarDock claimed was X times faster, better, less memory extensive etc etc than v1 - in which case I'd HATE to see v1!) and therefore I welcome TGT Soft and their 'hack' as you call it.

Score: 0

By nate

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 8:52 PM

Chris, I apologize for not making myself more clear.

I call Style XP a hack in the sense that it patches/hacks/modifies/changes/alters/etc one of my system files built into Windows. And in that way, it clearly is a "hack" -- it changes the behavior of a file not created by TGT Soft so that it functions differently.

My comments about WindowBlinds were meant to give the other side of the story. You were very quick to claim that WindowBlinds is slow and takes up memory without even using the latest versions and with no real data to back it up. I mentioned Stardock's claims because they *do* have data and benchmarks to back things up, that's all. I just like you haven't done any benchmarks, and thus mentioned Stardock as a source, whether or not you want to believe them.

I agree with you about themes, but that's just how it is! Badly made themes can affect BOTH Style XP and WindowBlinds. As more themes come out for Style XP, you will notice this. Whether the engine is uxtheme.dll or a separate program, badly made themes will slow down and potentially crash your system.

To sum up, I was not meaning to bash on Style XP. They made a very cool program and more power to them. However, the program is a hack (it modifies MS code) to a system file and may cause problems in the future (if MS modifies uxtheme, etc.). But the more people out there contributing to the skinning community the better, so I hope Style XP is able to do what it claims, and those wishing to modify their system files can do so -- I'm just not one of them.

On a side note, I was not impressed with the way TGT Soft have presented themselves. They initially tried to hide the fact that they modify a system file touting all of this work they have done, and essentially called all of the current skins made by the skinning community "crap." This is not the actions of a professional company, but rather a bunch of kids trying to make a quick buck. But then again, that is a separate issue.

Score: 0

By chris_kabuki

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 9:49 PM

"it changes the behavior of a file not created by TGT Soft so that it functions differently."... Yes, you're perfectly correct, and you were from the start, however I'm sure you will agree with me that the word 'hack' has a negative connotation to it. Therefore branding a whole product as a 'hack' doesn't exactly show it in the best light, hence why I went for the 'softer' approach by calling it a patch. And after all, this 'hack' doesn't modify the way themes are handled so a good comparison is a 'crack' made to bypass some copy-protection.

"You were very quick to claim that WindowBlinds is slow and takes up memory without even using the latest versions and with no real data to back it up"... You're perfectly correct there, I have not used WindowBlinds v3, mainly because of my experiences with v2.x. That is why I mentioned v2 specifically and also noted that although StarDock have said v3 is X times better/faster than v2, they said exactly the same thing in regards to v2 (compared with v1). Therefore my comments in regards to WindowBlinds being slow and a memory hog are based on v2 not v3. But by the same token, if I had used v3 and then complained about it, you would have just told me that it's still in Beta. =) As for having real data to prove that v2 slows down the UI, I don't personally have any you are right, but like I said, this isn't an opinion shared by myself alone, just about anyone who has used v2 (apart from those that work at StarDock etc) will honestly tell you that it does in fact slow down the UI.

As for bashing Style XP, I didn't mean to jump down your throat about it, it just seemed like you were trying to market WindowBlinds as being this fantastic program and Style XP as some horrible hack. I think there is plenty of room for both programs to co-exist because as I mentioned Style XP will only do whatever uxtheme.dll can handle and WindowBlinds is a lot more powerful (and buggy =) in my opinion).

"On a side note, I was not impressed with the way TGT Soft have presented themselves. They initially tried to hide the fact that they modify a system file touting all of this work they have done, and essentially called all of the current skins made by the skinning community "crap." This is not the actions of a professional company, but rather a bunch of kids trying to make a quick buck. But then again, that is a separate issue."

I'm not aware of the way they have presented themselves, if that is in fact what they did then they will learn fairly quickly that you don't do things like that if you want to succeed or even present yourselves as professionals. On a side note, I always have and will continue to use programs based on the program's capabilities rather than the company's profile. I don't believe it is fair to judge a product based on your thoughts on the company that made that product. And that applies to any company not just TGT Soft.

Score: 0

By nate

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 10:30 PM

No need to argue, I think we basically agree on most points (just differing opinions how you want to skin Windows).

But when TGT Soft meets with Microsoft and Microsoft continues to call their software a "hack," I think its safe to say it is indeed a hack and there is no need to argue about it. This is Microsoft's operating system, they are the best ones to classify a product that modifies their code. But as I said, more on that -- including Microsoft's response is coming soon :)

Score: 0

By nate

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 10:31 PM

Not that a hack is necessarily a bad thing. It's all about personal opinion and what changes people want to make to their OS.

Score: 0

By chris_kabuki

posted Nov 7, 2001 - 11:20 PM

I'm still half way through reading this but I thought you as well as everyone else here might be interested in an interview that DeviantART had with TGT Soft:

http://www.deviantart.com/news.php?id=6011

Score: 0

By chris_kabuki

posted Nov 8, 2001 - 12:02 AM

*phew* Just finished reading that interview and all 5 million and 1 comments that came with it. I can see this whole StarDock vs TGT Soft war becoming like the current Windows vs Linux or IE vs Netscape ones, i.e. more religious than anything.

My whole comment to all of this is:
Try and put other people's opinions to the side, toss away all your biast thoughts towards either company and give both programs a go. You'll then be able to decide on which program is the best for you.

Score: 0

By nate

posted Nov 8, 2001 - 3:01 AM

Well said! Everyone has their own opinions. You should try it out and just choose which one you would rather use.

The interview is interesting, but I don't understand the repeated off the cuff remarks about Brad personally. Did Brad go to TGT Soft's offices and steal all their Aeron chairs? Nonetheless it contains some good information on Style XP. Although some of what TGT Soft says about WindowBlinds are just plain wrong, so don't believe everything you read.

I think the skinning community is taking all of this too personally and needs to step it down a notch. There are more important things to worry about than fighting over the better way to skin your Windows.

Score: 0

By chris_kabuki

posted Nov 8, 2001 - 5:08 AM

"but I don't understand the repeated off the cuff remarks about Brad personally"... I'm not aware of these obviously and Brad was only mentioned in that interview once by the interviewer. But apparently from some of the user comments it seems like some remarks were made about Brad, then again those users could be simply standing up for Brad - I really cannot say as I haven't heard anyone from TGT Soft 'slag off' (is that a valid term in America?) Brad personally. In terms of general comments made against StarDock etc, well they're really no worse than the comments made by Brad (frogboy2), both being unprofessional and childish given that these are after all people who work for said companies.

"I think the skinning community is taking all of this too personally and needs to step it down a notch"... I got that feeling fairly quickly after reading the comments and I thought the Linux or Open Source community were bad!! You'd think they were risking being burnt alive for using a patch which undermines their high morals or something. The amount of b****ing done there about it patching MS' themeing/skinning engine is unbelivable.

But I stand by my original comment, try both programs and then decide which is the better one for you. I can see a lot of novice art people probably starting off with Style XP using Style Builder (since it's easy to use) and most likely gradually moving onto WindowBlinds as they want to do more and more advanced things (if they're interested in doing so).

Score: 0

By Draginol

posted Nov 8, 2001 - 1:05 AM

I agree. WindowBlinds 3 RC2 will be out tomorrow for users to try. It's still beta but at this oint, it should feel faster.

BTW, when I wrote the article (Brad here), there was no Style XP.

But please don't judge WindowBlinds on XP until WindowBlinds 3 is released. It's been very challenging to make XP able to natively support UIS skins while at the same time creating a compatible engine on Win98/ME/2000. There is a good reason why .msstyles are so limited, making a flexible skin language is very very difficult.

Score: 0

By Tylenol

posted Nov 8, 2001 - 2:19 AM

Yea.. and you guys can pay for it to get some of Brad's great technical support like "Try the latest video card drivers." Boy, I really flushed my cash down the toilet with Object Desktop. Guess that's why I never downloaded anything after my initial investment. Funny.. I bought it to receive support. Thanks, Brad.

Score: 0

By nate

posted Nov 8, 2001 - 2:48 AM

ObjectDesktop wouldn't work because of your video card? Sounds like you have some additional underlying issues there.

Nonetheless there are many pieces of ObjectDesktop that aren't heavily reliant on a decent video card, so I don't really see how your video card wasted your all money.

Last I checked Brad wasn't Stardock Tech Support, but maybe I'm wrong :) And if there was such an issue, why did you not ask for a refund? I'm sure they would be more than happy if you had technical problems.

Score: 0

By Tylenol

posted Nov 8, 2001 - 3:28 AM

Obviously you're missing the point. Everytime I had a problem, the answer was the same. "You need to install new drivers for your video card." As for a refund, why bother? I'm sure they wouldn't have given it to me anyway and by now my subscription has probably run out anyway. Stardock wasn't the first company to take my money and give me lousy technical support but being treated like a moron doesn't do much to bolster customer confidence and make me want to continue using their product. By the by, I haven't seen many companys that will admit their product has problems anyway. I guess if I could blame all my problems on bad video card drivers, I would do it too.

Score: 0

By Draginol

posted Nov 8, 2001 - 10:04 PM

Stardock provides unconditional refunds for users who experience technical issues for whatever reason.

Odds are, you were running on Windows 98/ME with an NVidia card at the time. Nvidia used to take some..short cuts in their drivers. We worked specifically with them on the 21.x series and they're much better. Additionally, WB3 offers users the choice of DDB painting and DIB painting (for non technical people DDB painting is a bit faster but requires decent video drivers, DIB painting is a bit slower but even on crummy video cards works pretty well).

Score: 0

By Tylenol

posted Nov 9, 2001 - 1:10 AM

Don't you think that explanation would have been a little more informative than "Try the newest drivers"? I must have emailed with various tech support issues 4 or 5 times and the answer was always the same. If there were issues with the drivers and cards (Yes, it was/is an Nvidia card), it would have been nice to have known that going in instead of getting the run around by your tech support people, Brad.

I'm sure that you don't care about little old me as a customer because hey, lose one and there's 10 more to take my place. I think you know as well as I do that finding serial numbers for Stardock products on the web is quite simple. It would have been nice if the people who actually PAID for your support would have gotten it instead of getting the run around instead because let's face it, if all I wanted was the software, that's not hard to find.

Score: 0

By Draginol

posted Nov 9, 2001 - 7:31 PM

Actually I do care and it definitely bugs me that someone would tell you to just upgrade to the latest drivers because that's a cop out on Stardock's (our) part. I'm on the net so if you ever run into any of that, you can email me directly at bwardell@stardock.com. Because tehc support needs to be able to say WHY in clear, concise ways, someone should spend the time to upgrade their video driver. Otherwise it just looks like they're trying to blame their problems on someone else. That's how I'D take it anyway.

Score: 0

By Tylenol

posted Nov 9, 2001 - 10:52 PM

Glad to see that we agree because that's exactly how I feel about how I was treated. Nothing like sending in a very long, detailed bug report to only get "You need to upgrade to the latest video card drivers" and then that be it. Guess that's why I unloaded the software after about a month of total frustration.

Score: 0

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