Stardock?

bugzlitey

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

wow....finally I know I´m not alone..... Thanx Chi Chi..... Now, because most of us agree that there is a problem there and all of us are devoted enough to the skinning community to bring up and debate the issue at hand....Some of you even said that you don´t use stardock products anymore.... Is there anyway to bring back the dead appz that were once competition? Especially something that competes with window blinds...I believe that a few people could actually make a difference if they really wanted to....and I really want to...

hobnobber

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Well most everyone knows I am not a skinner. When I read this thread and the comments made here I would also like to add the following. So what I am about to say is as a "user" of Stardock Products. My association with WC is mostly as a "lurker" but I have on rare occasions made comments in some threads and news posts there. Most of those comments were directed to the frog. When WC first came online, I read the Rules of the site and elected "not" to join the site!!!! However, when Frogboy decided to combine the Stardock Skins Library with the WC site, I thought that was really ballsy of him, cause now I felt "forced" to join just to get certain skins I was looking to download. I still feel the same about the Rules there, and also feel unwelcome. That is the reason why I choose not to participate with any regularity. I will jump into a controversial thread only on rare occasions. I have in the past downloaded many skins there, but since they combined the W98 and WXP skins it takes too long for me to sift my way through it all. I get really tired of seeing him bitch about the bandwidth, that really erks the sh.t out of me. Most of the people that comment in those threads are the Skinners and "not the user". I would venture to say that it is the "user" that causes most of the bandwidth problems. As a businessman that is a no-brainer "it is a business expense" and should be treated as such. This type of comment should not be brought to a message board any more than the CEO´s wages. That is just common business sense. I for one, being a businessman most of my career, feel that the skinner should be entitled to a little something... Even if it is just the latest version of the Stardock Products. After all, if it were not for the skinner, where would all of these skins come from? Oh Yeah, I read that Frogboy was a "skinner and a businessman". Silly me, to think that those free copies could be a write off as a business expense.

doreen

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Bugz there is some free skinnable apps to compete however the development of those apps is near none for most of them, which is why Brad continues to dominate the scene... As I said before it´s his passion and his business and he definetly backs it and leaves the others in the dust (nobody else´s fault but them that they don´t stand up and fight back by continueing on developing at maybe a faster pace?) but they don´t have the money to back it such as Stardock does... Also Bugs http://www.thematic.com/ check that link out To me that has been the only true competition WB ever had (my opinion only) not a free app, hard to skin, but very very good competition. and again they got stale for varioius reasons..

cuttheredwire

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

StarDock is a business. Quality is a gimic. Customer satisfaction is a gimic. Alies are temporary. Exploit when you can. Profit comes first. That is what most busness do. I don´t like either. I´m actually neutral on the subject. I like eppie desktop. http://www.virtualplastic.net/html/eppie.html I need to learn to code better. Everything else I want to say has been said. Both sides have very good points.

craeonics

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Both sides? Heard mostly one site here, redman. Makes you wonder, with so many people agreeing, there much be something...

chichigirl46

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Bugz..... go to the customeyes site.com? I´m tired and maybe I did not spell it correctly LOL I´ve tried getting a hold of the guy but have not gotton an answer as of yet? That is the next BEST to wblinds and I would jump at the chance :-) Maybe if enough people pound on his email box long enough he´ll come out and play :-)

doreen

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Bugz here is the http://dabder.free.fr/CE/ to what/where chichigirl just mentioned to you okay =)

cuttheredwire

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

There was some pro points. Besides, I´ve seen this thread more other places. Hard to keep them striaght. ^.~ btw, why hasn´t frogboy jumped in? o.O;

elwin

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Or you could try this one: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/6797/illumination.html {:p

chichigirl46

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Red........ cause there is no flaming here LOL

brub

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Well Red, ChiChi is right, I think Frogboy has not seen this thread, but if he came to see it. I would suggest to take most of this as constructive critisism. No one is flaming him or anything from Stardock. Everyone as been more than relax in their comments. If you look at this thread anywhere else, They are probably rude and unpolite.

craeonics

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Whoops, /me forgot the swearing and insulting Want me to catch up on that?

frogboy

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

This is a really good discussion. Of all the people who have posted, Plastic probably knows/understands me the best. Ultimately, there is always a real concern when your *hobby* and *job* mix. Skinning is something I love. I´ve loved customizing GUI´s since I got into computers. I started doing it on Windows 3.0 back in 1990 trying to make Windows look like NeXT. The problem comes in when you turn it into a job. And my problem is that I often have expected people to somehow magically understand when I get Stardock to do something because it´s a good thing for the community (hobby side) versus when it´s a good business thing. Nothing showed that more than the GUI Olympics which was blatently meant to be just a good deed. It was NOT meant as a shrewd business move. But people can´t be expected to make that distinction. The same is true of WinCustomize. WinCustomize truly did start out to be something to help the community. The problem is that it became so expensive to do that suddenly it had to either have a business justification or go away. And that´s where the percpetion issue with it came into being. For some users it just looked like bait and switch. But for us, it was a matter of either WC had to go away entirely leaving the community in a lurch or we could try to put it on the path as being a legitimate business project. Even now, it´s still a combination. WinCustomize is, afterall, where most of the Litestep themes in the world are downloaded today. Same for CoolPlayer. Same for ICQPlus. These are all free programs that arguably compete with software we make. But you see what I mean? Smart people know that you can´t have it both ways. I´m not the sharpest tool in the shed. If I were smart, I´d either downsize WC into being a true community site or turn it into a pure corporate tool. Right now it´s a hybrid. Somewhere in between. It is a community site but one that has to pay for itself eventually which brings those conflicts. When you have someone whose hobby is their job it comes across as nothing more than aggressive marketing. If I didn´t have a financial stake in the success of our stuff, much of what I write and say would be viewed totally differently. There is one thing I really do object to and that is the charge that I or Stardock attack competitors. CustomEyes, for instance DID copy the WindowBlinds UIS format and that was their stated intention at first (you can contact the author of it and ask for yourself). He later did change his format to be somewhat different but by that point skinz.org didn´t want to have anything to do with it. We never put pressure on skinz.org (this is Shoggot we´re talking about guys, you think he´s going to let me pressure him? Even today Skinz.org doesn´t support CustomEyes and clearly that has nothing to do with us). I might also add that the skins on CustomEyes were rips of WindowBlinds skins. Regarding WebBlinds, WebBlinds does not use any format that could be construed to be similar to be similar to anything else other than WindowBlinds. WebBlinds has always used UIS as its skin format. What was referred to was the IMAGE LIST which is not a format, it is...an image list (it´s like saying we use the same format as something else because we use bitmaps as opposed to vectors or something). There are legitimate reasons for people not to like me and Stardock. I tend to think though that like most things in life, people can interpret a given deed either positively or negatively. For instance, I have personally put countless hours over the years to reproduce problems that ChiChiGirl has reproduced and there have been updates to WindowBlinds based on her posts whether she realizes this or not (WB 3.4B just released yesterday resolves a Windows 98 problem based on an email she sent awhile back). If I didn´t work at Stardock my beef with Stardock would go roughly like this: While Stardock was part of the skinning scene from the beginning, they took their particular vision of where it shoudl go and ran with it without considering enough how others might feel. They essentially commercialized the whole skinning scene. Now users have to pay for all the leading software to customize their computers and even skins and such are no longer necessarily free. And they did tihs largely due to the help of that grass roots community. While Stardock can argue that their software is better than freeware alternatives, because they spread out and put out "good enough" software, it has discouraged freeware authors from even getting into the scene. Why bother making an animated desktop icon program when DesktopX is out there? Why try to make a freeware bar when there´s ObjectBar? In short, Stardock took away the incentive for freeware authors to write software for the skinning community because most software develoeprs don´t want to write software that isn´t "the best". But the end result is that there aren´t realistically freeware alternatives for most of the software that people might want to use to customize Windows. The only things left tend to be things that got started before Stardock got into that area (like Litestep). So in a sense, it feels like Stardock has taken a grass roots movement and turned it into a commercialized, Disney-fied, happy meal commodity all for the low low price of $19.95. THAT would be MY argument if I were looking at it from the outside as a old guard freeware advocate. And there´s counter arguments and counters to that counter argument. There is no CORRECT opinion on this. It´s just depends on your point of view. There is always a certain amount of wariness of the 800 pound gorilla of any community. That´s why I try to make sure I do hang out on the message boards and take the beatings I tend to take. Because we have a responsibility to the community. I don´t tend to post as much as I used to because it has lost some of the fun (it isn´t fun to be hated afterall). But I do try to read and listen and make sure we are responsive. If it seems liek the admins of WinCustomize are very loyal to us, it´s probably because they see what is posted on the admin message boards there. I think many people would be surprised at how much effort is put in to protect the users from "corporate influence" (for instance, I removed all Stardock employees that werne´t official admins on WC from having post deleting abilities last week because one SD person removed a post without getting it approved for deletion by the non-Stardock WC admins). I don´t think most people realize just how much influence the skinning community has on Stardock. But that doesn´t mean that the community doesn´t have legitimate reasons for having negative opinions. All we can do is walk the delicate tight rope between being a good citizen and staying in business. I can assure you that none of us get driven around in limos or own Porsches. ;)

brub

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Ok I hope this does nto turn into an argument. Just in case I repeat the first question that started it all. Why do people hate stardock! never said I did but I was wondering. some people like Doreen, Elwin, Plastic and Koa brought good arguments and Brad, brought some good points also. I came to the conclusion that Stardock was having the same problem in the skinning community that Microsoft as in the PC world. Microsoft is in court because they tried to take over the market, this is false, they are offering a OS that, lucky for them, is used by 95% of the computers in the world. They created something good that people associated with. Same with Stardock, they created softwares that common users associated with. someone that as been on a computer for a month, will never be able to install Litestep. But give a windowblinds disk to a newbie and it´s install in 5 minutes. that´s what I mean, The more you become popular, the probabilities are there that more people will hate you. I for one has been active in this community for little more than a year, But I have been a lurker and user for more than 3 years. I have seen the downfalls and uprise of some of those sites mentionned in this thread. I don,t post at wincustomize because of lack of respect for my work by the members, not by Frogboy, and yes I saw him more than once having a good mouth to mouth argument with some peoples. But hey! that´s life :) But I never really had a problem with him yet. I don´t use any of stardock´s apps, because I believe in freeware, but again, it´s not because they are bad softwares. I just don´t use them. Anyone of the other that posted earlier in this thread, I hope to see good arguments from you guys in answer to Brian´s post.

doreen

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

who´s Brian??? (BruB he´s Brad but close) hehe and who is going to try to argue Brad we all know by now he will just out type us! g´morning Froggy nice to see you out and about writing books again (I confess I missed them too along w/ plastic) well I will step up and try to be honest here, I had some past issues w/ you Brad I did(and stardock) but that was my own fault for getting sucked into some things privately so that was nobody else´s fault but my own... (maybe I started seeing things that were never there not sure and don´t really care anymore) as I said before as long as ppl try to stay focused on the hobby as much as possible and not some of the other aspects relating to skinning that don´t "really" involve them, it will stay fun... (we all have a choice in that matter how far we want to take our hobbies and what frame of mind we want to be in) I´ve seen "Alot" of great skinners and programmers leave the scene and never come back cuz of issues such as: money, rip, comments etc. (and other things) and to me that was sad they would have made skinning even better had they stayed the distance they might have been meant to stay? me I don´t want to hear money, bandwith, rip, bad comments anymore so I try to ignore those when I see it around me now as much as possible. unless I´m in an evil fighting mood... hehe If I share a skin I´ll upload it w/ the knowledge it´s going on the net (expect the worse and hope for the best) why fret the ripping and bad comments, when there is more important things in life to get upset over right? If you have the time & energy to fight it more power to you, that´s good, if you get upset at such things, don´t upload. Brad you have always stayed consistent you don´t seem to hide too much and I´ve learned to admire that. I actually think you are the best business man I have ever come across in my entire life and it´s most likely due to the fact you have such a passion behind your business (Which is the skinning aspect) =) And you back it up 100% who cannot admire that in you? Any freeware apps that are competition to yours that go moldy & stale there is no one to blame but themselves for not fighting back & having enough passion to back them up (money really is no excuse) where there is a will there is a way for anything in this life... I remember wb´s when the progress bars, scroll bars, and menu´s were not skinned, I remember the first animated wb! hehe it´s neat to see how far you´ve taken your app I think I will focus on things like that =)

doreen

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Yikes! Beware Froggy is contagious when it comes to making you type too much! hehe

brub

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Why the hell did I write Brian!!!! I knew that. sorry my fault was probably thinking of something else.

bugzlitey

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Wow...this thread will never end....but I need to speak yet again...I don´t know about anyone else but I got nothing out of Brads comment because in no way did it related to my posts....SO....Brad if you should return...please know that my gripe is not with you as a person...I don´t hate you...Like I said...I don´t know you and I think your response was honorable...but "What about the skinners" Art is my way of life, my ticket to success, my selfexpression....I´m a leo, with an ego, and I crave attention....The internet is my microphone and I sing through my skins designs....I don´t want money, I just want to be seen....and what better way to be seen than to pick the most popular appz around... There are more than enough "users" to go around...and I´m sure there are more than enough "skinners" to go around as well...but their creations are not nearly as effortless as a consumers download...Why can´t you award and/or reward those that spend countless hours and seemingly endless days working on skins for Stardock appz? Granted it´s usually done for themselves in one way or another but in the end if it´s uploaded and found to appeal to many people, than it also becomes extra advertisement for Stardock. I would love to have some sort of membership or be apart of a club that would allow for such benefits...and I´m sure something can be worked out... Buying Stardock products for me though, would be like a purchasing a disposible camera...pay, use it a couple of times, pay again for development, and than throw it away....and there is no worth in that...SkinStudio XP alone is ($29.95) and Windowblinds is 19.95, so the only thing of real value to me costs the most...How come? Why are the Skinners paying more than the users? Why is the complete Object Desktop cd is only 5 cents more than, standAlone WB and SS combined....Why would it cost me 49.90 bucks for the complete package when I will hardly ever use it, aside from development of a suite? Do I have a legit point of view? ah...I´m not asking for the world...none of us are...

bugzlitey

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

and Doreen...Ur absolutely right about this.... as long as ppl try to stay focused on the hobby as much as possible and not some of the other aspects relating to skinning that don´t "really" involve them, it will stay fun... (we all have a choice in that matter how far we want to take our hobbies and what frame of mind we want to be in) My question to you is, just outta curiosity...What aspects of skinning should not involve certain people?... And I´d like to take my hobby of skinning to the moon and back...but I don´t wanna have to pay to get there....I´ve been a downloading fool lately...wanting to skin it all, learn it all and know it all....And ur also right about having more important things to get upset over...but there are also better things in life to spend money on....but that´s just my opinion....which apparently doesn´t matter much....bugzOut ps..Doreen....I find ur comments to be very enlightning...and it´s nice having you around....

frogboy

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

SkinStudio XP includes WindowBlinds. And SkinStudio itself is free, it´s SkinStudio Enhanced that costs $19.95 (or $29.95 as SkinStudio XP which is a bundle of WB and SS). SkinStudio standard is very powerful, the enhanced has additional features. SS doesn´t time out or nag you to death or anything like that.

brub

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

btw bugz Your opinion matters.

doreen

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

thank you bugz... =) My question to you is, just outta curiosity...What aspects of skinning should not involve certain people?... Posted by bugzlitey on 15.08.2002 @ 11:45:52 Bugz good question but I don´t know how to answer that quickly... (sorry) just my opinion....which apparently doesn´t matter much....bugzOut Posted by bugzlitey on 15.08.2002 @ 11:45:52 you´re entitled to it, so listen to BruB =)

plastic

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Funny, an SD thread and I don´t even disagree with anyone, it´s just setting focus a little differently. As Doreen, I held some grutches against Stardock (and Brad, when in promotion mood and/or forced in the defense once more), mainly focussing on me wanting a strong freeware "scene", people/sites supporting eachother etc. There´s some idea(l) behind that, and was based on the assumption this webthing could be a little different than real life (which in general is good to me, but I´m a commie or something, can imagine better). So, the finger pointed to commercial efforts (too) easily... Brad, you got some article up somewhere about do-ers and breakers (or something, those that think they own "the place"). While I don´t agree and all, and it´s problably about a couple of people I admire and work with, there´s one thing that´s definately true, you don´t gain anything with critisizing at all (debate, different story). Want something alive, make it live... ..so when you explain what your "beef" would be, if no part of SD, that´s me a while back, I even felt the need to put in words why SD was an opponent (no enemy, no evil, but an opponent still). But it just doesn´t stand, even tempered like this. SD is there, and if it wasn´t SD, would have been Boxini, or maybe Winstep had become huge, Hoverdesk, Chroma even (the window skinning component might have been essential). It´s a given fact real life is here too, and as such, no need to fight it, nor regret it. Any grasshopper better don´t look back, just see what (s)he can do to make stuff (s)he thinks important live... ..and ain´t that what happened anyway ? Did what started as one "scene" not split up a bit and settle in different niches ? Yup, sites like WC, DA and DM (maybe more, dunno much about numbers) outnumber sites like los, skinbase (imho, thé grasshopper skin archive, hope I don´t offend), skinnables easily. But that´s cool and it´s not like relations are bad or something. That my point I guess. Anything felt against SD in the past originates in the old skinz days (two approaches fighting and living together at the same time), or in the days just behind that, with everybody settling. Now we´ve got two approaches living seperately, but co-existing nicely, if we don´t hold on to stupid history. And yes, grasshopper sites around could use some boost. But that´s up to the grasshoppers, not Brad´s fault, nor SD. And skinbase a perfect example persistence pays off... (hrm, skipped some clues I guess, gonna hit post anyway)

bugzlitey

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Man talk about dodging bullets.....I quit.... lol

brub

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

There is so much love here at Skinbase it´s so Cuuuuuute! if this thread would have been at DevArt. it would be 300 post of W00t, f**k off and lots of Bullshit. I love Skinbase

bugzlitey

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Welp....I´m a lot more calm now than I was when I flipped my lid with my first few posts on this subject....Plastic...I think I understood what you meant....and Why fight it....If ya can´t beat em....walk the hell away and never look back....So in closing I doubt anything will change....and I won´t HATE either...This has been a rather informative family conversation....It´s very rare that I speak out on something the way I have...but I couldn´t help it...So I quit....you win Brad!.... cya

cuttheredwire

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Speak the devils name and he shall appear, >;] Well, now I have to be cool and have a long post too. :P A lot of what frogboy said has merit from a business stand point, and ppl need to accept that SD is a business. Money is going to play a mojor roll in thier descions. You can _never_ forget that! A buisness without profit is out of business. (any one here ever actually read the ferengi rules of aquissition? -sp hehehe) SD is also in for a shock if it expect a community of free giving artists to accept a business as one of it´s own. If I was SD, the best I would hope for is welcome outsider, and take it from their. With two such different groups working together, you are just begging for conflist... C´est la vie. Bugz has got a point on the price. If I used WB and payed for those apps, I´ld charge for any skin I made with them. That´s all hypothetical though, and nothing really wrong with it. I would feel trapped to try and make up for the loss. However the skins made with these apps are free, and I feel that is taken for granted. Apreciated... but taken for granted. I will admit, from a business stand point, making this free is a bad idea. I´m a skinner though. Good point on the freeware, and one that I illuded too (I need to learn to code better). I want to eventually take up some of these causes/apps. I´ve got a long way to go, but I´ll do what I can. One thing bothers me though. Stardock has no _true_ 100% freeware that I know of. It has free pro, demos, and stuff but I would think they could afford to have a single, _dedicated_ freeware app that was as good as it could be for free. (good as it could be as in no pay for better version). I also think from a business stand point, this would be great for PR. Doesn´t really matter to me. Just observations really. Like I said, I´m nuetral on SD.

craeonics

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

It has LogonStudio, which is free (which I used to tweak my logon screens, ´cos I am way too lazy to reghack things). It´s really pretty easy: people pick on the dominant player, be it deserved or not. Seeing Stardock is the Microsoft of skinning, they will catch the heat and seeing the frog is behind the steering wheel of the HMS DOck of Star, he´ll be getting extra doses of tar and feathers. Which is why it is different nowadays, ´cos in the past things were more equal. /listen *craeonics is listening to: Aaliyah - More than a Woman

cuttheredwire

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Well, that´s something I guess. I was morethinking a skinnable app an os could use, but I guess that is expecting too much.

cuttheredwire

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

And yes I know there are a dozen typos in my posts...

frogboy

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

This is a great discussion. I hope someoen saves it since it´s probably what? 50 pages of stuff now? ;) Just a couple of specific responses: 1) Regarding giving out free copies: We send out several free copies of WindowBlinds every week. But it´s done on an ad-hoc basis. That is, someone from Stardock sees a skin they like and makes sure that the author of it has, at least, a full version of WindowBlinds. Does that mean every person who makes a skin will get one? No, it´s not any sort of scientific system. The GUI Olympics, however, provided a good opportunity for skin authors to get copies of Object Desktop since everyone who got any sort of honorable mention or above got a full version of that. 2) Regarding freeware: It depends on how you define freeware. I saw a guy once claim that Stardock makes NO freeware because even our freeware includeslinks to Stardocks´ website which in turn sells software and therefore can´t count. But softwaer that most people could consider to be freeware: a) LogonStudio b) PocketBlinds c) CursorXP d) Elves, Inc. (a game) e) XPBench (just because a "pro" or "plus" version exists doesn´t make the regular verison not freeware. Quicktime is freeware but there is Quicktime pro) Then there is software that is effectively freeware: a) DesktopX (you can one title screen when you first start it) b) SkinStudio This isn´t a ton of software, but consider how much of it is actively developed over a long period. That said, that doesn´t change the fact that people have legitimate reasons for not liking Stardock. They certainly do because it´s all based on ones perspective of what the skinning community is about. I subscribe to the view that there are multiple niches of the skinning community. I don´t agree tha tone can say "Stardock´s best hope is to be an outsider" because when you have sites like WinCustomize, we´re part of the "inside" whether we want to be or not. ;) My friend Plastic, like I said earlier, understands things better than most and is much more articulate than I am so I will try to put things like he has explained them to me: One reason people don´t like Stardock or me in particular is because in an open community like the skinning community people will have many different opinions. But many times it seems like I am not willing to let people be entitled to their opinions. That I and in turn Stardock seem intent on trying to make everyone conform to a singular vision of what skinning is and what it´s all about. My massively long posts seem more designed to wear down those who may have thoughtful disagreements about our particular views on what skinning is about. They see what seems liek a small army of supporters that seem intent on defining what the community is about to the outside world without being sensitive or caring as to what other viewpoints may exist or allowing that there may be other ways of doing things. And this helps turn a certain percentage of people who are regularly exposed to this into being unhappy with Stardock. It´s a very legitimate thing and it´s taken me a long time to understand that. As an engineer, I tend to naturally view that any issue can only have a singular "correct" opinion and all others are wrong. Therefore, those with different opinions merely need to be explained to (at length) why they´re wrong. Of course, this is a terrible way to go about things when you´re dealing with people. Because sometimes there really are multiple correct opinions to a particular issue. That´s why you don´t see me on every topic on every site on every thread "Defending the faith". All we can do is do the best we can. Try to write software as best we can and support users and skinners the best we can.

frogboy

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Just a clarification of the last paragraph: The reason you don´t see me defending Stardock nearly as much as I used to is because sometimes you just have to let people have their opinons whether you agree with them or not. There are cases when good hearted people simply see the same thing and come to different conclusions.

chichigirl46

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

I think this has been a great discussion too....... but I do have one question for frogboy, I have noticed that when you put a thread on the message board to the skinners, asking for their opinions on how to solve the "rating" and comment problems on their skins, you don´t follow through with the suggestions that were made, not even excepting the most agreed solution? Why put a thread like that out their when you have already made up your mind, its frogboys way only? Its not your product their asking to be changed, IMHO I feel the skinners have a say, its their skins, and it should be respected what they want, Majority rule......... when I read a thread like that, I always say to myself.... why in the hell did he post such a thread, and aggravate the skinners if its going to be the way frogboys wants it...... its just another let down :-)

chichigirl46

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Oh....... and to answer if I noticed in this last Wblind version, the bug fix for W98? Six months ago I bought a new computer with WXP, so I can not answer that fix........ But for WXP I did notice a bug fix for tansparencies for the thumb nail on the IE scrollbars :-) and looks great again, but still have the same transparent problem in the start menu on the top only..........

cuttheredwire

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

I´m all kinds of SD questions in my head now. I´ll have to mail frogboy. PArt curiousity, and part clarification.

chichigirl46

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

My last comment on the start menu @ the top transparent issue is from the last two wblind versions that picked up some fine traces of pixels, so I cleaned that up and is fine now........ touchie touchie, but that makes these last two upgrades of wblinds great, running smooth with no problems :-)

frogboy

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Hmm. I don´t recall ever make a post asking people if they want to keep the ratings or not. Ratings are a fact of life. In fact, Skinbase has them (you´ve rated skins here in fact). I am not alone in how I feel about ratings. They have been discussed at length by the administrators at WinCustomize and the virtually unanimous view of the admins is that ratings, as they exist now, are fine. And note that no skin site is run more fully by skinners than WinCustomize (Who runs WC on a day to day basis? Treetog, Jafo, Alexandrie, Boxxi, DavidK, etc.) all 5 of them are in favor of the current rating system. In short: It´s not fair to say that it´s a matter of "Frogboy´s way or the highway." But that really is a totally different issue than what BruB is talking about. ;) BTW, glad to see that latest versions of WB are working better. The version that just want out on Friday was a major bug fix. Found a significant resource leak that had been in there since WB 2!

adni18

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

"Ratings are a fact of life" The problem was always the bad ratings and the bad ratings here in SkinBase don´t make the hard work of the authors invisible to the visitors and the most important are NOT ANONYMOUS! As a skinner I HATE ANONYMOUS RATINGS, but I respect any critique, if I know from where it is coming from. (I am sure Brad that you will ignore this post, but I will not hate you ;) )

frogboy

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

I never ignore posts. I just don´t always agree. ;)

chichigirl46

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

I´m not sure the word "hate" is correct, I think just angry, a lot of little things can build to cause anger...... not hate :-)

chichigirl46

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

It seems the rating system here is not much of a problem, most everyone here seems to only rate once in a while but most of the time we don´t use it all, and speaking for myself usually I try to rate for newbies and helpful comments.... but all in all I feel the rating system at any site can do more damage then good and removing it could get rid of a lot of anger and problems that it can cause. As I said earlier in this thread, aggravation, and I would walk away from wblinds if there was a competitive program, I have enough aggravation in my life and I don´t need more, for me I´m into skinnnig to keep my mind busy from pressures in my life, and of course for fun and meet new people and not to be treated unfairly.......

chichigirl46

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

A man was telling his neighbor, "I just bought a new hearing aid. It cost me four thousand dollars, but it´s state of the art." "Really," answered the neighbor. "What kind is it?" "Twelve thirty."

adni18

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

hehehe LOL Good one chichi ;)

chichigirl46

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

IMHO this is a good example why people feel the anger towards Stardock/Frogboy http://www.wincustomize.com/msgboard.asp?id=57261#57265 I see NO reason for these kinds of actions, just because some one expressed their opinion with out being RUDE and decided to leave............. I see no respect for any one, who´s not a happy camper with out being told off, shammed and don´t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out...... what makes it different to me, Wincustomize verses any other skinning site DA or Skinbase or VelocityArt etc is that Wincustomize "SELLS" programs, not just a skinning site.... Those that are suppose to be running the site don´t have the Respect of a skinner who also has feelings, to STOP a flaming including Frogboy....... Sorry, but it just gauls me as frogboy says above, you can´t please every one, so why humiliate a person for their FEELINGS................

brub

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

Dork is a respected part of the community it´s sad to see him pull from one of the site!

dokt

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

/me pulls up a large sofa and waves at those assembled ... opinions to follow, but I´m in the mood for a game right now ...

hobnobber

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

A wave back at ya, Dokt! Relax and enjoy the company :)

adni18

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

I must say here, that I didn´t like at all, the rude way that some members of Wincustomize have answer to Dokt post and also the post of Pete Constanteas. I feel very sorry about it and I dislike the known adulators.

dokt

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

OK. I´m back, I´m chilled, I´m sipping a Jack Daniels and Coke. OK - Stardock. They´re a company, they´re making money in the software business and all power to ´em for that. The software they produce is, for the most part, high quality - and they certainly keep plugging away at it until it works in a way that pleases them and the end-user alike. I can´t fault the way they interact with the end-users, in fact I´d be hard pushed to name a single other company that works so closely with their punters (my day job is a tech journalist so believe me - I know about this). OK - that´s the good. Now the bad. There are very few alternatives to Stardock software (at least in the specific area of GUI modification - particularly Windowblinds style programs) and what little software there is soon experiences the full onslaught of the Stardock spin machine (step forward and bow, Brad) - witness several threads over at Neowin, as StyleXP gets a rubbishing - witness also, several threads over at custo, as StyleXP gets a rubbishing. Do I expect Brad to sing the praises of StyleXP? Of course not - but it´s pretty undiignified watching him take the program apart, particularly since the StyleXP team are about as much of a threat to Stardock as Corel are to Microsoft. Lots of folks (myself included) simply prefer the visual styles you get with StyleXP, such as Sosumi XP or FatalE. Why is that so hard to understand? As to Wincustomise. I held out great hopes for that site and thought it´d be operated along fairly egalitarian lines as a true replacement for the much-missed Skinz. It hasn´t worked out that way - not even remotely that way. The applications listed are little more than a cherry-picked selection of programs that are no threat to Stardock´s own products. Is it naive to expect to see programs like Hoverdesk or StyleXP listed on a site paid for by Stardock? Possibly, but their supposed intention was to create a skinning portal - what they actually produced was nothing more than a Stardock showcase. Of the staggeringly enormous list of 23 programs listed in the Wincusto library, two are general sections (wallpapers and screenshots), 10 are third party programs and 11 are Stardock creations. Gee - how very democratic. I´ve mentioned to Brad himself that the news stories at Wincusto are always heavily Stardock-biased and he said that was because nobody every submitted news to them - strange then that the two news stories I ever bothered to submit (one of which was about an interesting report into GUI customisation in a newspaper) never got a look-in. And then there´s the general attitude of the users of the site which is frosty at best and down-right ignorant at worst. Time and time again I´ve seen the Wincusto mafia round on someone because they have the nerve to criticise something to do with the site or to do with Stardock. And yes Brad - of course there are flame wars at other sites - but on those other sites people tend to get flamed for saying something dumb or inflamatory, rather than something that merely goes against the doctrines of the site´s owners. I´ve no doubt there are some nice folks over at Wincustomise, but similarly there are some who need to learn how to turn their computer off occasionally and get outside once in a while - they have Wincusto myopia. As to the fact that Wincusto is moderated, I can see where ChiChi´s coming on this one - sure you keep out the real crap, but you also end up with a library full of work by the same 50 people done in the same 50 styles. I´ve no idea what the selection criteria for walls is at Wincusto, I can only comment on my own experiences on this, but of the three I´ve submitted, all got rejected - one of which when upped to ThemeXP (http://www.themexp.org/view_info.php?id=9517) got 800 downloads (1100 views - not a bad conversion rate) in the space of about a week. Was it a bad wallpaper? The people downloading it at ThemeXP clearly didn´t think so. Would it have been well-recieved at Wincustomise? I´ll never know. Did I sulk when my walls got rejected by the Wincusto guys? Of course not, I just upped ´em to DevArt and DeskMod and ThemeXP in the hope that I´d get some feedback from the people there, without having to justify myself to a panel of moderators. I have no idea why Wincustomise turned out the way it did, but I´m not going to be paying it many visits in the future and I´m certainly not going to be uploading anything there (probably not actually that big a deal since I´m too busy working to skin these days and I was hardly prolific even when I was skinning). At the very least I think Stardock should reconsider the list of programs they have in their library, particularly since people are now paying for the service. If I was going to subscribe to a skins site (and I´m certainly not against that in principle) I´d sure as hell want a little more than 21 cherry-picked apps. Right ... fingers ache ... going to the pub.

pitkon

Member

17.02.2026 16:06

My friends, I greet u all. I am a rapist, a leech, an abuser, an idiot and a clown. And a troll. All this according to the creatures that inhabit Wincustomize.com. Are u sure u want me among u? My crime was I started a thread in Message Board there, complaining because I was never notified in advance that I could download only a certain amount of skins. So, when they told me to subscribe in order to get more, I asked everyone if free skinning was in danger. What I got in reply was a cascade of verbal abuse and I decided not to answer any of the distinguished people that frequent the site. It was not worth it. I’ve seen the scene many times, in other eras and under other political regimes. People used to wear black back then. I will note one exception: DavidK. He is a decent man in a site grown nasty. True, I hadn’t uploaded anything, but I ain’t no skinner. And, since I love computers and skinning I’ve been in and out of sites since 1999 and no one had ever asked me to upload anything. I wish I could. I have no problem sharing. And I’ve never sold or profited in any way from other people’s skins. So, I downloaded 100 MB from WC. So what? I’ve downloaded about 40 GB of WP and skins all these years (mostly Wallpapers and countless themes for LiteStep, Blackbox, Serenade etc.) They all rest in my puters, for my own viewing pleasure. I didn’t know that was a crime. And I didn’t know I had to pay a site for other people’s work which they had contributed for free. So, I’m outta there and in my new niche, Skinbase.org. I have nothing against Stardock – they r just doing their job. It’s just that I have the bad feeling we are on the verge of something new arising. Some new era of conglomerate-controlled skin sites. And conglomerate-controlled skinners. This isn’t what free skinning was about till now. I know how hard it is to run an expensive site but there must be other solutions. I’m not against popups – I’m just against restrictions concerning free skins. I wish to thank people who expressed their views perhaps better than I did, like Dokt (nice to see u here, Andy), and mgorbach (I hope I will see u here, Marina), and Adni18 (ευχαριστώ για όλα, Νίκο). I will even try to acquire some artistic talent and help any way I can. Your favorite troll, Pete Constanteas