What is Reddit's opinion of WindowBlinds?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Yes Windows 8 default color scheme makes me feel like I'm in an insane asylum. Stardock has quite a few utilities for Windows 8, WindowsBlinds lets you use an Aero Glass theme in Windows 8. I don't use Windows 8 full time so I can't vouch for the long term performance and stability but it looks pretty nice. Apparently there are other ways to restore Glass in Windows 8 which I didn't care to research yet which you might wanna check out before you pay for WindowsBlinds. http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/

The people that are vocal about the Modern UI are the same ones who are vocal about any other issue with anything else in the tech world. If I surveyed just what forum users and Reddit said about an issue, I'd have an awfully polarized world view.

I upgraded from W7 to W8 Pro and it was 15 dollars. That's if you bought a computer in the last 6 months with W7 on it. It's 45 dollars to upgrade from W7 otherwise until the end of Jan. Pretty good deal IMO.

Start8 is what I use, and it doesn't "remove" the Modern UI. I can still call upon it by a customizable keyboard shortcut (Which I do on occassion; I like the Netflix and weather apps). Stardock is the company that makes Start8. They've been making stuff for a long time (Windows XP) that modifies many aspects of the system. I really doubt Microsoft is going to step in and block Start8 from working. I guess that's the most assurance I can give you regarding that.

I know you're not into the idea of paying for something that should be included in the OS, but regarding the font/text color issue...

http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/

What version of Windows are you running?

Windowblinds is a paid application that has plenty of themes from Windows 7 up to 10.

You can also go onto deviant art and look for themes for your particular version of Windows. These are generally installed manually and you will need to patch a couple things first, but there are plenty of guides which are usually in the comments from the theme creators.

EDIT: windowblinds http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/

Usual patcher to make Windows use 3rd party themes. -http://www.windowsxlive.net/uxtheme-multi-patcher/

Windows 8 is better for a few reasons, but if you're not a fan of the user interface I might recommend some re-skinning options.

I use Start8 on my Windows 8 laptop because I despise the way the start menu works.

WindowBlinds can completely change the color and images of your taskbar and windows along with a few other customization options.

There are a few other products on their website that might interest you, personally I use Fences, WindowBlinds, Start8 (on my laptop), and LogonStudio (changes the logon screen for Windows 7 (not sure where a safe copy would be)).

Not the final build, but it's looking a lot better than the mess of Windows 8.

Also Windows UI has customization options by third party software and users creations. So it's not necessarily locked into one UI like OS X usually is because Apple upgrades OS X annually and locks out changes.

http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/

The reason I say Win 10 is going to be a OS X killer for the fact that just before Windows 7 was released, OS X market share severely tanked to around 4%. PC users and many Mac users liked Win 7 a lot and I think they are going to like Win 10 also.

http://regmedia.co.uk/2014/03/14/statcounter_small.jpg

When Windows 7 was released, it basically took over the Windows market share.

Win 7 expires in 2020, after that it doesn't get any more security updates, Windows 10 is supposedly going to be a free upgrade for a year after release and will always get updates.

So I'm predicting another huge ascent wave like when Win 7 was released and Win 10 machines will look so good in the stores that people won't bother spending more on a Mac.

Windows 8 was a shot in the arm for Apple, it really was. But the party is over.

If you mean Classic Shell then no. That's actually a cool open source project.

Stardock makes Windowblinds which made Windows XP look like OSX back in the day. If you do use it, to get classic start menu functionality I highly recommend switching to Classic Shell :P

There was a Nostalgia set with Orange/Black https://ctrlalt.io/buys/nostalgia-gh60, could contact BunnyLake at GH if you're interested in seeing if he has any extras. No numpad however, it for a 60% layout. Purple's actually not my preferred color either, though I have no purple keys/keysets and this one was nice enough to pull the trigger on.
Edit: Cool destop btw, I should look into some desktop skins again to see if I'd like them, used to really cool playing around with different WindowBlinds or whatever (http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/)
Edit2: Esoteric, need to use that more instead of obscure..

Can't really do it without a skinning program like Windowblinds, but I've never been a big fan of that program or the skins available for it...changing the color in the "Window Colors" screen makes a fairly drastic change to the way Windows looks...which UI elements are you mostly wanting to affect?

Hello,

There are skinning prorgans like Stardock Software's WindowsBlinds and numerous third-party Start Menu program replacements. Something to keep in mind.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

It looks like WindowsBlinds can do it. There's a free trial available. I'm not using Windows 10 anymore, so let me know how it goes!

The only way i know of is by using Stardock's WindowsBlinds Program, though its not free but you can still try it for a month. BTW i wouldn't really recommend using any of the custom themes you dump on the /Resources folder, when i tried that it corrupted my PC.

I'm not sure what differentiates between third party apps to make some shady and some not but Stardock Windowblinds has been around for 15+ years & is worth checking out.

Have a look at the software from StarDock, they do lots of windows 8 tweaks. I've used Start8, Launch8, ObjectDesktop and others on lots of my laptops, and their WindowBlinds pack looks like it would do what you want :)

Look here:

Deviantart Windows 8 Themes

Some themes requires to disable Windows 8.x functions like Ribbon in order to work properly (feels like designers did the themes in a forced way, first they didn't want to make themes for 8.x but they did because lots of people asked for)

You can also try WindowBlinds Link, it does not require to cut any system features, but can be buggy with certain programs/games (you can "blacklist" them in the program options to not apply skins to them)

You can try some skin software like WindowBlinds (some users here reported that it can be buggy with certain applications), it has thousands of skins available, you can try it for a couple days and buy if you like it.

http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/

• Customize your start screen with OblyTile, I make some tiles, you can check them at www.deviantart.com/enigmaxg2 (in the "more like this" section you will find tiles made by other designers also :D )

• You can also customize the windows look & feel using WindowBlinds http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/

You can get that Aero look with Stardock WindowBlinds, plus a lot more.

A good, free alternative is CustoPack Tools, but there aren't as many options for themes.

As for other things, I'd need to know what specific functionality you're after that Vista doesn't have.

Dude, go get yourself a copy of WindowBlinds and a good skin. They love that sort of stuff. But suggesting the next version of Windows should be designed around this feature is kind of silly.

No, I'm saying that literally the only benefits of Windows are its support line and software availability. Linux

• has a better user privilege system
• has a better terminal (by a landslide)
• can boot into the terminal to fix things
• has a centralized app distribution centre
• has excellent community support
• is free (both in dollars and as in speech)
• is often less bloated
• does everything the average computer user needs (web browsing, text editing, etc.)
• is way more customizable (even after Windows users buy stuff like this)
• has no viruses
• doesn't kernel panic as often
• users aren't forced to migrate to shitty versions like Windows Vista
• did I mention free?

Edit: also--I never tried it--you can get games to run on Linux.

I know, right?? You can try Windows Blinds from Stardock. I've used it in the past for XP; it was a little resource heavy on my old machine, but it always worked well enough.

I've done this on Chrome but the inverted colors are super weird. There's also f.lux, the night setting on Reddit Enhancement Suite, and Window Blinds.

this and here is the link to a ton of cutie mark buttons you can use (only use this if you have windows 7), also http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/ is a cool windows theaming tool

WindowBlinds is the old faithful here. I haven't used it since XP, but looks like they're still going strong.

I'm going to go see if they have a window theme that can make it look like windows are growing out of the desktop. That would be cool.

http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds
It'll probably take a bit of work, I don't even know if it's going to work at all but I gather Windows Blinds is pretty much the standard in UI customization for Windows.
Unfortunately, if that does work for ya, you may be shit out of luck. Happy hunting.

Sorry, I haven't been using replacements for a while, so I'm pretty rusty. Heck, I've never really used LiteStep before as it was too resource intensive for my taste.

I'm assuming you mean changing the appearance of the Explorer windows and such? The title bar, scroll bars, etc? If so, I don't think Emerge Desktop does it (BBforWin does it). Maybe try looking into Windows Blinds?

Alternatively, when I was using Windows XP, I would download a uxtheme patch to be able to use more heavily customized Visual Styles. Here's an idea of what you can get with that. But I don't know how to actually make your own styles. And I don't know if this works for Windows 7.

As I've said, it's been a while since I was into this kind of stuff so I'm a bit outdated. But all this talk...is giving me an itch...to start again hahaha

well there is also Windowblinds or DesktopX... which, does anyone know.. is that formerly ObjectDesktop?