I've tried these themes, skins, changing even the way Windowz XP itself looks and feels through basic theme adjustment. What it comes down to though is the first time these themes or visial adjustments impact the way I use the computer in a negative way--it gets dumped. Period. For example that glass theme. I can see how you have multiple window borders crossing each other, it would be near impossible to tell where one ends and another beginds, if you have 3+ crisscrossing.

It can NEVER falter, stability is a pristine goal for everything I do on the computer, and I will sacrifice eye candy at all costs to get there. I never have a background, it's always black, and I never have desktop icons, only quick launch. Over many years it's what works best. And other than patches and driver updates, I have near perfect two year uptime on my current PC.

I don't see how Vista or this in particular will help me get things done any better, although I'm excited about what is UNDER the hood with vista, like an improved search system, which in Xp in some ways seemingly worse than W2K.

Hmmmm...

After all the glowing praise, I am quite sure the problems I am having with this are 100% system related....

Firefox 1.5 won't skin at all, in fact, it loses all borders and buttons. A few other programs are sketchy at best.

The desktop wallpaper cannot be changed unless you have skinstudio?? wtf is that about?

I dunno guys. I've a 1.5Ghz P4 system with an ATI 9600 128MB Vid card and 1 GB of System RAM.

I suppose I could re-format and re-install... haven't done that in ages, but is it really worth it when all my other programs are working just fine?

about desktop wallpaper, just go to WB configuration, basic settings, and uncheck Apply any wallpaper supplied.

D'oh!

Hehe... Silly me.

I probably would have spent more time figuring that out if it worked on ymy machine. I can't expect it to work on all configurations, so this isn't a gripe at Stardock, mind.

Next time I reload I'll have to throw it on there and see what happens. Sucks, but I ain't gonna reload just to change the way it looks unless the performance increase is *that* much better.

Great news cause the windows vista GUI is ok but the icons are crap. So this program will be useful to switch or exchange the icon of the vista

one thing i noticed is that the taskbar is actually not transparent in WB5 but actually has an image of the wallpaper which creates an effect of transparency...

this can be verified by opening a new window... keeping tasbar hidden and then bring it up above the window.. u still see the wallpaper's "image" above the window

I really like the WB transparency, it rocks, but to say that WB brings the "same capabilities" of Vista to XP is bulls***! Vista has a glassy effect, which WB doesn't...

It depends on the theme you install..

And Vista is still in Beta, that feature is not even finalized, so Vista may or may NOT support it either.

And a "glassy" affect is dependent on the video card...

You mean like this?
http://i4.photobucket.co...141/jeffreybt/glass.jpg
or this
http://i4.photobucket.co...effreybt/vistaglass.jpg

I've tried version 5 and it's excellent. Gives you things you can't get with the uxtheme patch like transparency. No slowdown whatsover; in fact window opening and resizing seems even faster.
Rock stable.

Easily one of the coolest apps ever!
I've been using WB for years. Version 5.0 rocks!
Transparencies, glowing buttons, smooth rounded edges (no jaggies)and no performance hit.
I like having the ability to change the UI according to my mood. God bless all the skinners who provide such sweet eye candy!
Try it you'll like it :-)

Too bad they make you keep buying every damn version instead of free updates or at least a major discount. Screw this, I'll wait for the real thing.

No offense...but $20 bucks is way cheaper than what Vista will run you.

Yeah. Heh heh heh.

If you've got version 4, you can upgrade for $15.

This IS the real thing. Stardock has figured out the feature in Vista that will give you the same themes as Vista will include. WB has been doing this longer than MS has, and they perfected it.

And there is a major discount 25% isn't major? wtf you cheap bas****. You want free or you want good? Developing software isn't free, or haven't you figured that out? Stardock you want them to give you something they had to pay someone to do? YOU get real.

or you could simply download and install WindowsX's Vista Transformation Pack 2 for FREE!!

Hope your post is pulled for the language you use. Totally uncalled for.

I experience no loss in performance when using this. Quite the other way around actually, since it uses hardware acceleration provided you have a compatible graphics card.

Also, it is not dependant on the themes service. You can just shut down the themes service while using WB, no problem.

I use it because it let's me use way more minimalistic - and at the same time beautiful - skins than windows classic or default.

makes me want to find one for styleXP love this them programs cause it only uses windows theme service so no extra services are run

I dont see the point of the shareware version if they dont let you see the per-pixel alpha effects unless you buy the "enhanced" version.

that's why its enhanced.. duh!!

The shareware version is there to demonstrate, not give you the same software, otherwise there is not "enticement" to buy the full version. Are you too cheap to spend 20 bucks?

Its a time limited piece of software. If you are going to disallow me to use the program at a certain point, then give me all the goods to see if I like it until that time.

Otherwise is limitware and it hinders a persons ability to properly evaluate the software.

I'm certain it's already hit the P2P scene if you want to 'evaluate' it that badly...

I used WindowBlinds 4.6 and it completely messed up my system. The overall appearance was good, but some graphics didn't change between themes like they were supposed to and system performance was degraded. When I tried to uninstall the program it kept hanging the system when I used any native theme other than Windows Classic. After several days of tweaking and cleaning, I had to go back over a month of restore points to get one that restored the system properly.

Sounds like you have a messed up system install, so you can't blame Stardock. Its funny how you people complain about software, when I don't see any maintenance being performed on your system to test for problems, its always the new softwares fault..

You need a good reg cleaner, that's a good place to start...

And you had to go back over a few restore points, so basically you don't know what caused the system malfunction, is what I am reading. . . .

Well you are reading wrong. It is funny how you people feel that you are the fountain of all computer knowledge. My system was well maintained and cleaned up regularly. I run a series of diagnostics regularly. My system was working fine before the installation of Windowblinds. When I tried to uninstall it, it wouldn't uninstall completely. I worked through this with customer support and the last resort was to go back to a pre-windowblinds restore point. Since I couldn't remember exactly when I had installed it, I had to do some trial and error. The problem I experienced wasn't isolated, I found many others, through WEB searches, who had experienced the same.

I've been testing this app for a couple days now and i have to say it's overall a pretty good program. It's far from perfect trough. So far i've noticed:

-Serious slowing down/extensive cpu usage while using opera 8.51 in *some* cases (it has to something to do with other windows open at the same time)

-on a freshly rebooted system, with just the firewall loaded (no antivirus,unneeded services etc) i notice a somewhat constant 2% - 5% cpu peaks every 4 secs or so

-It hanged up after changing the gamma options

-word processors - rss readers -email clients slow down my system to a crawl without any reason whatsoever, i'm trying to find a reliable method to reproduce this.

(i didn't had those issues before, while using a patched uxtheme.)

And so far it's good that wbhelp.exe is not running all the time anymore, but it integrates DLL's to the system theming engine (hooking it maybe?) instead (Wblind.dll, Wbsrv.dll, Wbhelp.dll, Wbui.dll) so there's no way it uses less resource than xp's default theming serv since now it depends on it.

* -Serious slowing down/extensive cpu usage while using opera 8.51 in *some* cases (it has to something to do with other windows open at the same time) *

Video Card Drivers.

* -It hanged up after changing the gamma options*

Video Card Drivers.

* -word processors - rss readers -email clients slow down my system to a crawl without any reason whatsoever, i'm trying to find a reliable method to reproduce this.*

and.. Video Card Drivers.

You either need a better system with a better graphics card, or update your drivers.

My guess is you are running an AGP setup, with 16 meg ram, and an older video card. Those symptoms suggest your system is not robust enough to handle the graphic enhancement..

There are some "tweaks" in WB to turn certain things on/off like ATI hardware support.. if you don't have an ATI chipset, this may have adverse affects..

I can't believe people use this kind of software. What an excellent way to slow down your system and decrease stability and compatibility. Sure it looks cool, but I don't think that should be the only criteria.

Cheers,
Christian Blackburn

Mine hasn't slowed down at all

i understand what you mean, i used to use windowblinds before, like ver3, it was really slow down my system, but to be honesty, i think this ver5 is much better, really did not feel much slow down of system so far.

Did you actually TRY the software, or you are just posting some rediculous assessment without even trying it first?

And its not the only criteria, it changes some other affects. And this software is a major improvement over previous versions. I think you have this thread confused with AOL 9.0.

You should really quit using AOL, or have mommy or daddy buy a new computer for Christmas.

Hi all, did anyone tried it on windows 2003 web edition or windows XP 64 bit?

thanks, compatibility list does not list it.

No clue about "windows 2003 web edition" (I didn't know there was such an edition), but from the article:

"WindowBlinds 5 runs on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP"

Looks like it works on XP64

I believe he is referring to, "Windows Server 2003, Web Edition".

Which, from the title, I would guess is a server OS (Just a guess, mind).

Why would anyone want to run something like this on a server? Stability concerns, and the fact that I've never known anyone to actually *use* a server, hands-on, on a day-to-day basis, would make it seem like a pointless waste of time as well as a potential security/stability risk.

Save it for the home rig/workstation. Leave the server to it's assigned task and don't waste the horsepower on something trivial like UI.

Yeah, no kidding. You shouldn't need to change ANYTHING on a server's UI. What's the point? If there's anyone that's actually using the server enough to care what it looks like, you have a problem.

actually lots of ppl, and I mean LOT of people, use 2003 as their Desktop system...

I am surprised you didn't hear about it, just browse the web, 2003 configure as Desktop (need some tweaking) beats s*** out of XP system, which are rather old and underperforming in comparison...

sometimes 2003 is performing 200% better(my own experience is, that sometimes more, e.g. working with Adobe Acrobat, .NET apz), even in games (althought I don't play them, I have been told Gothic loads 3 times faster for example) etc etc

XP64bit is another story, its based on 2003 kernel, but its slowed down by WOW layer sometimes, so 2003 is still the cream de la creame of todays OSes from MS.

I could tell you dozen(cca 20) features that are better in 2003 that are not in XP, but you would't care, althought they are Desktop related (like new better fonts, better MSinstaller, new and faster NTFS, default .NET install, MP9 as defaul with all the codecs, MMC2, and first of all ten times better security as default and as hotfixes(there are only around 18 avaiable now) etc etc)

That's interesting. I didn't know anything about all that. Never heard of anyone using any Windows Server OS as a desktop OS.

From what you're telling me though, it sounds like a good idea, except for the compatibility issues.

I've tried using a trial version of 32-bit Windows 2003 Server Standard Edition as a desktop OS. I agree its performance and stability is much improved over 32-bit Windows XP SP2 but I can't see spending more than $300 for a desktop OS. I can wait for Windows Vista or for improved hardware support for 64-bit Windows XP to get improved stability.

By the way, the WoW 32-bit layer in 64-bit Windows XP does not slow 32-bit software down at all. It speeds up 32-bit software considerably due to the extra registers AMD64 processors provide.

OK, this is the reason why people like to claim Linux is so much better than Windows for things like this.

Gamers and Programmers like to test apps and games and server ALL at the same time. So since Windows Server runs just like a work station, people think its cool to try out all the features just like a workstation.

So then when they complain that Windows 2003 Server sucks, or crashes, this is where it comes from. Maybe they should make Windows more like Linux Server or Novell or Unix, because you can't run Server as a Workstation...

And just about every big company the IT group does the same thing, they *use* server as their desktop extension because they are too lazy to switch back and fourth...

And from the early days of NT, it was designed to be better performance than Professional. Server had better tweaks, but with 2000 and XP/2003 server, its no longer the case..

Workstation and Server are indentical in performance given the same hardware.

OK, I know this isn't a Windows 2003/XP discussion thread, but the claims that server is faster than a workstation is bogus.

First of all, if we are talking pure hardware, Server has SCSI and built in hardware that it needs to perform better, and general Workstation class machines, don't have this upgrade, and therefore Server APPEARS to run better than Workstation.

Secondly, most good gamers run XP. So if they even thought server had better performance, they would switch in heartbeat.

And if you are running Server 2003, it means that you are reading enhancements to make 2003 run like a desktop, and you should be reading the threads that show how XP can be made to run better, and you won't need server in the first place. 2003 is the newer OS, but its still built on the SAME kernel/technology as XP.

We can take any machine, and I can tweak XP pro, with drivers, take away the server overhead of running additional services, and I guarantee I can make XP perform at least as fast as ANY 2003 server.

And I would like to know which "features" are better in 2003, because I have been using XP for years, and I work in technology, and work extensively in Server environments, and I think you are making these up, so please tell me what you think those features are.

ALL the APPS, Services, Drivers, and NTFS, ARE EXACTLY the same among XP/2003 Server.. There is NO difference.

There is a misconception that somehow 2003 Server is magically faster or better, and its a TOTALLY bogus statement.

"K...so if WB5 uses DX for window-drawing...which used to be GDI's realm...

Does this affect gaming performance at all? I can *definately* understand how it would increase basic window-drawing performance, but using DX resources would logically limit the remaining performance left for gaming applications."

it does affect performance even the old version did iirc there is an option to disable hyperpaint which was the tech behind it however i have not used windowblinds past 4.3 so i maybe wrong but it is unlikely to get something for nothing

Practically all Direct3D games run full screen so this shouldn't have any effect on them. With the power of today's video cards I can't see it being an issue either way.

Unless you happen to be using a VC that just *barely* supports DX9.

I suppose I could fork over the $150 and update, but...

this is a MAJOR Prob.

just as i protested he porting of the sidebar from vista to XP so do i oppose this UI

it takes away the exclusiveness of vista, and i, quite frankly, find it demeaning.

Oh well!

If all they are offering in Vista is a better look then screw 'em anyway.

They have taken away so many of the things that they were going to have in Vista that I'm no longer interested anyway.

Why would I want an OS only to have it be "more pretty"?

Who cares? I'm not paying for Windows Blinds or Vista just to get more eye candy. Windows is a tool and it does it's job just fine as it is.

I hope you are not being serious, because that's probably the dumbest thing I've ever read here. Vista is an operating system, not a person. I can't imagine how you find something like this to be demeaning. If anyone buys Vista just because of how it looks they need to get a clue. Anyway feel free to oppose it all you want. Go to Stardock with a picket sign and march up and down shouting about the wrongs they are doing to Vista and about it's so called exclusivness. You won't change anything of course but we'll all have a good laugh, and if you're lucky the guys in white coats won't come and take you away. By the way, Stardock is fully supported by Microsoft so you'll have to go march on them too.

Microsoft has been borrowing Stardock ideas for over 10 years.

It was Stardock, not Microsoft, that first introduced sidebars. Stardock, in a sense, was the original developer of side-bar programs with Control Center which was released in 1994!

Stardock had ZIP folders in 1994. Stardock was doing visual styles first. Stardock even had an Explorer UI before Windows 95.

WindowBlinds does NOT include any sort of "aero" skin. Users make skins based on the technology WindowBlinds provides.

I, for one, enjoy cross-over applications and tools. For instance, being able to go from one system to another with virtually no change in UI regardless of OS version is quite nice.

Frankly, I find your exclusiveness demeaning.

If the sidebar and the UI are all Vista has going for it, then I'll be more than happy to sit with XP and a few UI enhancements.

Hey!

What's wrong with being a tool??!?

Stardock, the company who makes WB5 has been around for 11+ years and they are a Microsoft Gold certified partner. Microsoft has actually taken loads of Stardock technology to Vista. So if you do the research you should be thanking them. And if that upsets you I predict that when Vista is released and 100's of new Shell and Skinning apps pop up you won't be very happy. I have been a paying customer of Stardock's Object Desktop and a WinCustomize subscriber for years and honestly nobody does it better. My computer has looked better than Vista for years lol. And I can make my own BootSkins, Logon's, IconPackages, Cursors, etc. I have transparencies & animation. And DX Pro is great, I can make my own Gadgets and give them to all my friends & they don't even have to have DX on their computers. There are also free versions of all applications for everone to try. Also, it doesn't slow down your system it actually enhances game performance. There are several benchmarks from the leading gaming sites to back this up.

I like being a tool. :-) Hey still waiting on those win XP 64 drivers. linksys says no plans by the way.

I e-mailed Linksys recently about 64-bit drivers for their wireless network adapters and was told "your concern has already been forwarded to product management but Linksys customer service reps have not heard anything yet".

Maybe Microsoft needs to suddenly discontinue support for 32-bit Windows XP like they are doing for 32-bit Windows 2003 Server. That just might get hardware companies scrambling to write 64-bit drivers.

Can anyone post a link to download this vista skin. i've tryed wincustomize but the file cannot be downloaded from there, cos it says cannot find server. please help, i really want this skin:(

That is the wrong one, that's an old version from back in July. It won't work on the final version of WindowBlinds 5. The theme you are looking for is named Arrow and you can find it from the skins link on the WindowBlinds home page.

VistaXP v3 WB
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/20806397/

Arrow
http://skins2.wincustomi...m/MikeB314/wb/Arrow.wba

K...so if WB5 uses DX for window-drawing...which used to be GDI's realm...

Does this affect gaming performance at all? I can *definately* understand how it would increase basic window-drawing performance, but using DX resources would logically limit the remaining performance left for gaming applications.

Anyone tested this? Say with NFS:MW "BE", or F.E.A.R.?

Use this along with samurize and you'll have a super cool desktop!

I've tried Windowblinds twice before. I trashed it both times after 10 minutes because I got tired of giving up my resources for the look.

When I saw the changes they made to this version, I decided to give it another try. All I have to say is "wow." NO impact on performance whatsoever, and I have to say, I do like the new Vista UI.

Thing is, windowblinds uses very few resources! If you're using win98 or something, I might understand, but on XP it's very light. Benchmark testing shows that it's actually easier on resources than the built-in XP theme!

Same boat. Used WB off and on since forever. Never could stand it all that long because it was simply too laggy on all but the newest systems I had.

I'll definately have to take a look at this one.

I think that's what I just said.

Nice work here. It's fast, killing off the resource complaints, and it looks good. Anybody else get the feeling that Stardock designed the Windows Vista UI?

Next thing they should do is clean up the purchasing process. It is far too complicated, requiring way too acct creations, activations, emails, downloads, validations, etc. You gotta do some work to buy this product!

Looks kind of MACish. I will be using classic mode myself with my wonderful theme that I use now. So, I hope they offer a cheaper version that requires less resources.
EDIT: Excluding the free resource hog.

EDIT: The resource must have been a bug, but after playing with it a bit, I personally don't like the themes that it has and most are too hard to read.
I have removed it and will not use it again.

there are plenty of good themes on wincustomize and deviantart and all you really have to do is find a theme you like (minus the color) and then use the gamma controls to make it whatever color you want.

You realize there are hundreds of other themes available. You mean you don't like any of them?

To Banquo and Paradise-FH- No I didn't waist my time looking for something better. I have always had something better, at no cost to me. I looked at the featured themes and didn't like them and found them very hard to see. I would think that a company that wants to sell something would use better judgment than to use hard to see themes.
I am not really willing to have to spend more of my short time looking for something that should have been in the first place. Why should I pay for something that I have to spend hours to find a part of it that fits what I like when I have had a better one to begin with?

EDIT: My current theme that I made in less than 2 minutes for free: http://www.getmyhelp.com/junk/mydesktop.jpg
This is a larger picture.

I still don't get how they are "hard to see". You must have a really horrible monitor or something. They look just fine to me, not hard to see at all. There's plenty to choose from, and it's not like it's a lot of work to find them. No more work than reading the articles at Betanews and posting here.

Woah, no wonder you were having trouble seeing them. You've got more icons on your desktop than anyone I've ever seen. :P

Anyway that's not really a theme, but rather a color scheme. You can make your text yellow in WindowBlinds too if that's what you really want.

Yeah. I am color blind, but that still has nothing to do with spending hours looking for a "cool" theme. I did spend a few minutes looking just now and it has taken too long to find something that I would like. I guess I am just one of the very few that are just to damn hard to please.

Don't get me wrong (I guess I should have said this several posts ago) I think that MOST people will love this program and that if you are able to see the contrasts well enough then you will be very happy.

Oh Banquo, I had several hidden behind the browser. (icons)

EDIT: If you think my desktop has to many you should see my Quick Launch. LOL

"I guess I am just one of the very few that are just to damn hard to please."

I guess so. :) I just went to the site and hit sort by rating and found lot's of very nice theme within minutes, certainly not hours.

Didn't know about the color thing but you can't really blame WindowBlinds, most all of the themes are made by users not the company. If you looked I'm sure you'd find some you would like and as I said you can change the colors, fonts and adjust the themes however you like.

I only have two icons on my desktop; My Computer and my web browser. Also only four icons are allowed in my quick launch bar. I guess I'm a neat freak. :D

Yeah, I am just a picky (this message will get negative for this) son of a b****! I was raised to get what I want and not to settle for less. I do think that WindowBlinds 5.0 is a good program for most, just not for people like me. Most people will be very happy with this program.

I hate cleartype. I tried it out once on a 15" monitor, and it fuzzed stuff up so bad!

Now I have a 17" CRT, and man does Java look fuzzy!(I think it uses it by default or something....that or anti-aliasing)

I can barely tolerate looking at most java apps, except ones like Azureus. And yet that kind of text looks so great on my Uncle's iMac...

Actually cleartype is intended for LCD displays only. It usually will not look right on a CRT monitor.

Cleartype has been out for much longer than LCD's.

That doesn't change the fact that it doesn't work well on CRTs, it makes the text blurry. It's recommended only for LCD displays.

At very high res (1600x1200) on a Trinitron display, cleartype actually looks better than standard font smoothing. However, even on a Trinitron, that's only an accident that it looks okay. It's *seriously* only designed for an LCD, because the subpixel blending which ClearType uses is not available on a CRT.

...think laptops, man. laptops have had LCDs much longer than cleartype has been around.

Just an FYI.

:)

Yeah, I forgot about those little 5" guys.

You mean thousands right! LoL and there must be about 100 other sites that have themes that are not on WC. I feel sorry for someone who can't find a theme. And I feel obligated to tell those who don't know...instead of buying one Stardock product for $20, buy Object Desktop for $49.95 and get most of their products for that one price. Also the next year when you renew your OD you won't pay $49.95 you will pay $34.95. http://www.stardock.com/products/odnt/ Sorry I just love all of Stardock's products so much I can't help myself hehe ;)

If you use Stardock Central's Skins & Themes section you can look @ the newest additions, updated skins, top downloads, Featured Skins, or recent skins. And thats not all: each library is broken down into sections to make it easier to find what you want. WB has 24 sections including: Computers, Movies, Specialty & GUi championship 2004 just to name a few. You can also use the WC Browser to do the same thing. I understand if this is not for you but I really enjoy discovering an IconPackage that goes with a WB perfect & adding a matching Logon & BootSkin. Then adding a ObjectDock Plus Dock that is to die for...along with certain widgets etc. And then making them my own by coloring them and saving them as a Suite in Theme Manager so I can apply that Suite any time I like. And if you have lots of Quick Launch icons you sound like you'd love RightClick, ObjectBar, or Tab LaunchPad. Just a thought :)

Free version bogged my system down.

Not worth it for me.

Personally I like the Royale theme with a nice background and my Object Dock bar at the top.

They aren't kidding when they say it integrates with XP.. There is abosolutely NO process running as Wblind.exe anymore..

Only time you see it is when you click the configuration to change the skin.. Other than that, you will not see a process running or any resources tied up as a result.. Very nice.

The whole time I ran it (about 5 minutes) it kept my cpu at 100%.

That's a pretty questionable claim, but if so, submit a bug report. Because I have never seen my CPU jump.

I don't know what else would have done that and I removed it and my CPU is back to 1% at idle.

EDIT: Nate, I did submit a bug on this and after a reinstall, I did NOT have this problem. I may buy this version.

That happened to me with the stardock desktop, and I quit using it.. For me Windows blinds has been very good. I have loved this product for years.. the key is a good video card.

Check this screenshot out:
http://www.stardock.com/...blinds/wb5/index.31.jpg

Animation and other effects without using CPU. It's done through the video card rather than the CPU.

Honestly dude, that looks like a glorified preschool toy. There's no way I want that running on my system unless they're paying me. And yes, I already tried it.

Really nice program. Unfortunately, is takes a lot of resources from your pc.

Not really, it uses fewer resources than XP's own skinning engine does.

READ THE ARTICLE:

"Unlike previous versions, WindowBlinds 5 requires no extra process to run; it loads up as an extension to Windows XP and replaces Microsoft's own theme system. Wardell hopes the change will finally put to rest complaints that WindowBlinds is not "native," and says the release can even improve default interface performance by tapping into DirectX."

Yeah, in fact I don't even notice its running.. it only increases resources during a skin mode, but it reduces down to minimal to maintain the skin.. Its a very clean program.

I must have found a bug. The whole time I ran it, my cpu was at 100%.

Okay, that is plain wrong. First off, even the 4.x versions used *VERY FEW* resources. Second off, if you'd RTFA, you'd see that version 5 doesn't even leave the loader in memory. You GUESS that it takes a lot of resources without actually trying it. That would make you wrong.

I want to know just what kind of PC all you are running when you say it takes resources? And what OS? On the rig I am on now I am running XP MC 05 w/2 Gigs of Ram but even on my kid brothers pc w/1 Gig of Ram and the Nvidia FX 5200 w/128Ram WB runs awesome. I have 2 6800 Ultra's on this MC. On my 2004 MC I only have 1 Nvidia FX 5200 w/256Ram and 2 Gigs of Ram and I have no problem even when I have 20 windows open lol. I just don't get why everyone says it's a resource hog. I've used it for years on several machines configured several ways and I don't have this problem.

Any benefits from using windows blinds 5 with an msstyles theme?

It might be "faster" since WB uses your video card.

For one thing you won't have to use hacked system files to use them, and the other WindowBlinds has been optimized and should use fewer resources than the built-in XP skinning engine which is getting quite old now, and it can use your 3D card instead of using your CPU to draw everything. So in my opinion certainly.

For those that are using WindowBlinds be sure to disable the themes service in XP since it's just wasting resources for nothing. EDIT: That advice may no longer be correct; if this new version of WindowBlinds replaces Microsoft's theme engine maybe it needs to be left running. I don't know, haven't had a chance to try it. With previous versions of WindowsBlinds you could turn it off though.

Is that a fact?

So does windows theming... but thats GDI and not directx :)

Disabling the theme service made my theme go away... so I dunno if thats really how to handle that.

It'd be nice to disable it and still have the theme working. :)

It has optimized Windows abilities to interact more directly with the video card and take advantage of the hardware in your system.

Windows Theming does not take advantage of the video card, Windows Blinds does, in fact there is a built in "tweak" to modify behavior in Windows.

But in answer to other questions, Windows Blinds I have been using since 1.x, and its a great program. I just upgraded to 5.0, and I like it. Some programs don't like the "skin" mode, but those I eliminate from Windows Themes, and it works fine.

Its very fast, and doesn't have any "artifacts" like some other programs. Its a very clean program.

I hadn't thought of that but you may be right. :)

Yeah, I usually kill theme service, and after you said that I checked, its not set to automatic, and its started.. Its definately a theme service now..

Maybe they enhanced it so that it integrates with XP. Its much better..