WindowBlinds: User opinion and review

WindowBlinds: User opinion and review

Introduction: WindowBlinds is a third party application that allows you to customize the way windows and the programs that run in it look. Mostly for the better. If you cannot afford a Macintosh, you can surely make your Windows box look like it using WindowBlinds. It is not free but does not cost a fortune. And best of all, there are thousands of this party skins available on the net for free which you can try.

Setup and Installation:
Very straightforward, no one would have trouble with this unless you decide to read the license and do not agree with it (not that there is anything out of the ordinary in it).

One curious aspect is that if you disagree to the license it shows at the beginning, it merely makes the next button un-clickable. It cannot be closed by any other means except task manager. This peculiar behavior continues throughout most of the setup as the cancel button sits there grayed out.

Pro:
The skins are pretty good and only took some 27mb ram when in a flashy skin. There are minimalistic skins for those who do not like too much distraction from their work. Then there are elaborate skins beautifully created to make you want to stare at your desktop. It allows you to customize many aspects of the skins and the number of skins created for this that you could download is impressive too.

Cons:
When I switched from blackcomb to windows xp style the program seemed to be working then just quit, dumping me into windows classic style and turning the program menu totally transparent! Nothing to see or click but the tool tip pops up telling you what you are on. This transparency error I mentioned occurs every time I try to switch back to the good old look of windows XP.

It seems to really, really want you to use windows classic style as it sees fit to revert to that style when you unload it. That is right, shut it down and you are not automatically reverted back to the earlier look you were using.

However, it is not too hard to get back to the old look without using the program so it is not an extreme issue.

Overall Experience: Decent program and its worth really depend on what you are looking for. The skins that come with it are just so good they *almost* compensate for the annoyance you will cause yourself if you try to look though everything. If you want your computer to look really good without hampering the performance much this is pretty good, however there are bugs and basic annoyances that just don’t seem to make it worth the 20$ they charge for it.

If you have the bucks, a decent machine and just want an easy way to make it look better then buy it otherwise it lacks any other practical usability. It does not enhance the way you would work on your machine but give you more eye-candy to make you work on it!

Resources:
WindowBlinds Homepage
WindowBlinds Download
WindowBlinds Purchase
Download Skins for WindowBlinds