Stardock’s best but most unappreciated apps

I don't have these two but I have Fences Pro ! It's imo a real must have at home and most of all at the office.

Animated wallpapers seem good but windows 7 changing ones are ok for me... But I find windows 7 wallpaper library a bit small. Do you have many available deskskapes wallpaper ? are they free with th software ?

Well, as someone who doesn't have those, here's my thoughts.

1. That sounds like it would be a constant drain on system resources. Of course, logically, I know that it's probably insignificant, and I don't consistently use much resources anyway. But logically, I also know that it's an aesthetic thing, and could end up being distracting and/or annoying to me. Besides, I have all these nice wallpaper images that aren't animated. What would I need animated wallpaper for? I probably wouldn't even be able to find any cool ones.

2. I don't understand what it does. In this modern world of the internet, why should I bother with something that doesn't lay itself out in the clearest of terms for me? I mean, I might have to think for this. None of what I see looks essential to me (even though it's not improbable that it would feel that way after having used it for a while).

Also, I didn't know either of them existed before I saw this post.

Brad, I didn't know they existed. I'll give the demos a shot.

I saw the title and thought this was about RightClick........

Of course these 2 are definitely in the top 5

I've been waiting for Object Desktop to go on sale.  I've been eying it for about two months now.

It has been listed in Impulse as one of the best sellers for 'software'.

OD includes both DS and FX4 and many other neat apps.

Are you planning to make them free for us graduate students ?

For Deskscapes, my old outdated XP system is not up to the task of running it. When I get A new system it will be installed and used.

For WindowsFX4, seems no window animations for XP, since I am just a casual PC user not a power user the other features don't seem useful for me. Again will be installed when I get a new system.

Free for those of us who bought Elemental on day 1  ?   

Free for seniors?   Seniors who were grad students long ago?

Have an Object Desktop subscription so I've been enjoying both of these.

i love a good .dream

I agree Brad. Two of the best apps you make. I love them both!

Right Click for 7 with PNG support would rock too. I think it should be a part of Winders 8!!

Deskscapes?  Really?  I'm using Deskscapes right now, and I love it!  And i'm running a trial of WindowFX 4 as well.  I thought something like TweakVista/Tweak7, Keyboard Launchpad, SoundPackager, and/or IconDeveloper would make the list.  I don't have any of those programs.  Don't really need them.  But I love Windowblinds, Deskscapes, Fences, and IconPackager.

Resource hog and unproductivity are your answer,Brad,whatsoever you said.

????????????

I don't understand the statement.

DeskScapes and WindowFX 4 both are resource hog and unproductiveness,got it?! Mate.

No, they are not resource hogs. I see no evidence of that on my pc.

I like FX4, it makes the transitions on my windows much better and less abrupt. It doen't require much of a brain to select a few options here and there

Deskscapes is a bit pointless to me. I have windows open all the time so I only ever see my desktop at startup/shutdown.

To each his own.

I think I'll give that DeskScapes program a try, you never know, I might like it.

If you aren't selling as much of them it can only be poor marketing since they both are excellent applications. Winfx4 is absolutely a top notch addition. The reason why MS didn't put it in is i guess lack of business interest. It's a pure homecomputer use application.

And homecomputer owners are cheapskates, you'd be surprised how many cracked versions of your stuff float around. 

I don't use deskscapes because my lowly laptop can't handle it. As for FX4. I haven't tried it yet. I'll dl it and see what happens.

Deskscapes is a fantastic app. My take on it is, It is appreciated. (Well over 1600 Dreams in the gallery).

Could be.

I used DeskScapes until it started making games run screwy. Back when we were testing Demigod it kept crashing and I couldn't figure out why. Turned off DeskScapes and it stopped crashing. Between games and animated wallpaper that I rarely see, games will win.. stopped using it after that. Maybe I'll give it another shot.

Well, to answer the question "why don't I have this on my computer and never will": DeskScapes is the kind of thing I will never use; I like my computer relatively clean and efficient. WindowFX4 is more useful, but I use windows almost only for gaming and leisure in general. As such, I cannot justify spending more of my small grad' student pay for such an application. When I work, I do it exclusively on linux (not much choice anyway), and I don't believe Stardock sells anything for us linux users.

It depends on what kind of computer you're using.  Is your PC rather old (like a few years or more)?  I've got DeskScapes, WindowFX, and WindowBlinds running simultaneously on my new desktop PC (which I bought just 2 months ago), and my CPU Usage is usually below 20%.  For those who are curious, my PC has an AMD Phenom II 945 Quad Core Processor, 8GB of DDR3 memory, and an ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card (stand-alone graphics, not integrated), so it can handle ALL that plus everything else that I can throw at it like image editing, web browsing, running Office and virus scanning simultaneously without any slowdowns.

Heck, my OLD PC, which is now over 6 years old, couldn't handle running Deskscapes without the CPU spiking to 100% usage (it had a single-core  processor).  Even a simple virus scan slowed it WAAAAAAAAAAAAY down to the point of absurdity.  I'm glad I don't use that piece of crap anymore.

The point i'm trying to make is that if you've got a fairly new, speedy PC, it shouldn't get in the way of productivity and your PC should run every bit as fast as if it wasn't running those programs.  But as for aesthetics, the animations (depending on which dream you use), can get rather annoying.  If you're editing images and running WindowFX, don't set inactive windows to darken.  I found this to be annoying myself.  You just have to tweak the settings until you find it to be just right (for you).

I apoligize for my response being kinda long, but I just want to get my points across.

You must have an old PC? Today's PCs have more RAM and better CPUs. There should be no problems with resources as these apps don't use much.

Maybe you got borked installs?

I'd try reinstalling them, because they shouldn't be using that much resources. Mate.