Maybe he just forgot to think...

my, my, welcome to the WC forums, slam bam, boom.

voidcore loved the post, we had quite a good chuckle over that.

I don't think that WC lies about their products however I do think their expectations sometime exceeds reality. There is a certain "my way, or the highway" mentality that irks me occasionally but all in all the majority of problems that I encounter can be fixed by me by changing some settings here or there. We're not going to made privy to the inner workings of Stardock for why they make the decisions that they do. Why for example do they only support ie7 and ff. Is it for lack of talent, I don't think so. (I know the answer already, it's a rhetorical question)

anyhow I digress, as much a I want it to be my way, the reality of the situation is that I have to do it their way in order to play. Do I like this, "no", will I eventually make the changes needed to continue participating, "probably". I'm in the process of getting a new computer for which I'm actually changing from XP to vista. I dread all of the tweaking that I know will be required when downloading and reinstalling stardock software.

will someone get a spellchecker working for the forum posts, please

Same here, I've been a user since 2003.  I've never ever had an issue with Stardock products not once.

In all my 19 years of troubleshooting and repairing PC's, I've always said that "if you never turn a computer on, that computer will never break." 

But since people do turn them on and since they do break, human intervention has to be automatically implied.

So that's a choice.

i wish people would stop with all the bs about "this product doesnt work" i hate that, i have been using stardock products for about 5 to 6 years now and i have only had and issue with bootskin xp ONCE and it was MY system that wouldnt allow it to work...stop your whining. run the trials first and if they dont work DONT BUY THEM !...PERIOD...ALL HAIL STARDOCK FOR YOUR GREAT WORK

Posting "It worked for me" is almost as pointless as "It broke for me."  Better to post specifics if you are having a problem and comment on that only if you have had a similar problem [hopefully resolved].

yeah but creating a post with a headline like that is uncalled for. get help people, if you have any pc skills at all you'll be able to fix most problems on your own or the age old un-install and re-install usually works too

It's called taking responsibility and ownership for your Personal Computer.

*Cross posted by mistake.

It is funny how some of you get all offended by a post that isn't even personally directed to you, and yet so quick to judge other users because they may be experiencing problems, by basically calling them computer illiterates (fanboy behavior).

I have been working as a computer repairman for the past 15 years and have had more than my share of trouble with some of these products. It is true that Stardock does not lie about the system requirements of their software, but they forget to mention that they will only work under certain software configurations. WB has only started working properly for me on my Vista x64 since the 6.40 update, and I didn't change anything else on my system. The patch just so happened to fix whatever bugs were causing the problem.

Most people who buy software expect it to work out of the box, and most software does work out of the box. I own a long list of programs that I have either bought or downloaded for free over the years, and I can say WB is definetily the fussiest one. And I understand how this may be frustrating to the average user. Maybe adding the word "beta" at the end of the product name until the well-known bugs are known to be wiped out would be a good idea.

I love Stardock products when they work with my system, but at the same time I empathize with those facing problems. Calling the company "liars" is unfair. Assuming that all those having trouble are idiots is also unfair.

WB works really good on XP because it has been out for 8 years. The companies have had plenty of time to figure things out. But people are moving to Vista, which is still relatively new, and now that Windows 7 is almost here, we are not about to see the end of this.

If you check each program page you will see 'System Requirements' which details under what is required to run the software.

If I judge by the posts in this thread, the problems I was experiencing with WB prior to 6.40 were caused either by a lack of computer skills on my part, or a bad software configuration on both my computers. Obviously, something was preventing WB from loading, I don't know what it was, and I'll probably never know. Fact is, on the day I bought WB I was unable to use it, and it was frustrating. When you buy a product, you expect it to work, period.

Both my PC's exceed by far the system requirements listed on the page, unless you are telling me that x64 isn't supported, in which case you should make that clear on the page as you did with XP. Anyways the 6.40 update magically fixed the problem, just as I was about to give up on it or beg for technical support.

The same thing happened when I installed Bootskin when it appeared in Impulse. Never worked for me until the lastest update. Even on a freshly formatted computer. Now, it would be interesting to find out which programs or drivers were interfering, but now that everything seem to be working OK, I don't have an interest in going back to older versions and experimenting.

There should be a list of known incompatible drivers and programs on the main product page. If there is already one, make it more visible so that people can know what to expect BEFORE they hit the Buy button. And stop blaming everything on the users, it is bad marketing.

I'm probably just shooting myself in the foot here, but...

does this include configurations that are needed and/or not supported to access the website to it's full potential. (i.e. no ie6, no flash10, no safari, etc.) I've looked for the fine print before regarding what's required to properly access WC and the forums. maybe it's there somewhere, I just haven't seen it.

I do acknowledge that most answers can be found in the forums however having to search the forums for system esoterics appears to be somewhat bassackwards.

i really dont think anyone is BLAMING the user here...just saying its not kool to call the company LIARS if and when the USER has NO COMPUTER SKILLS!...try to figure it out on your own first, try different things....DONT COME TO THE SITE AND MAKE ACCUSATIONS

Let's everyone try to be cool; be civil.

All are welcome to be a part of these forums and post their thoughts and what-not.

Point is, not everyone who buys a piece of software is willing to become a full time researcher, that's the job of a beta tester. And also it doesn't say anywhere that being a computer expert is a requirement to use these products. And it isn't easy to figure out the cause of these problems, even if you are an expert. And some people have complicated set-ups that make it difficult .or impossible to try all the different combinations. The reason this thread is being dismissed by everyone is because of the word "liars". Change the title to "Stardock are unclear about the requirements" and the original poster has a valid point.

PS: Why do you assume that person has no skills, unless you know him/her?

WindowBlinds is just terrible on vista, it will crash explorer at least twice per session if you change skins too often *sigh*

on XP it's fine though

Ya. thats definately not typical at all, I know dozens of users and although there may be a few issues what you are describing is far from what most experience. I apply skins while working on them in Vista literally thousands of times.. Zero 'crashes'

Try checking your machine for conflicting apps\patches

How about this: Fresh vista install + firefux + windowblinds = so far 4 crashes of explorer.exe, all because of windowblinds

Get a better PC.. thats COMPLETELY Atypical of the average users experience and I know dozens and dozens of WB\Vista\Skinner\Users. Has to be SOMEthing your doing wrong.

Contact Support or use a diff. skinning engine.

Here we go again! What a great community.

First and last time I spend money on a stardock program.

You added two proggies there....

How about 'subtract Firefox'...and your problem may disappear.

Cause and effect....it's the same issue as tuning your car....if you alter TWO settings and it's suddenly running brilliantly you'll never be sure if changing ONLY ONE of them was the solution....or the other....or both....or even just 'one of those things that was/is coincidental'.

Analysing the cause of a system issue isn't always simple...

"Hey doc....when I touch my right knee it hurts....when I touch my left knee it hurts....and when I touch my left shoulder it hurts...."

"Sir....you have a broken finger."

+10 Agreed, it seems this community's way (or at least vstyler's) on solving the problems is: "Get a better PC." or saying "Has to be SOMEthing your doing wrong." while epically ignoring the fact that there is something actually WRONG with their software. I faced problems on at least 3 different vista instalations already.

@jafo, great, so you're just telling me to uninstall my software which i need every day and see of windowblinds works well?

Since you seem to know so much about WindowBlinds, why don't you give us exemples of what these conficting app\patches might be. I'll ditch WB way before I go and spend 1000$ on a new computer thank you.

There's nothing wrong with this community, just because there will be several here countering the posts which attempt to apportion a system's maladies to one specific product or another.

Yes, there have been HUNDREDS of posts complaining about a system issue with such Stardock products as Windowblinds....but that is the nature of the human beast.....it will typically only voice displeasure...rather than praise.... yet there are millions [the silent majority] who either have NO ISSUE AT ALL or such insignificant that they have nothing to complain about....in other words the particular program actually works as intended.

Unfortunately, Wincustomize.com is the largest online sounding-board for any/all of the disasters/failures/errors....so a casual observer here assumes the worst.

Remember...inside a car wreckers' yard you might surmise that all cars crash.

They don't..;)