gigadelic

WindowBlinds 11.07 not applying Styles at all on Windows 11 24H2 — what next?

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WindowBlinds 11.07 not applying Styles at all on Windows 11 24H2 — what next?

from Stardock Forums

Hi, I have a registered version of WindowBlinds 11.07 (latest as of this post) installed on my laptop running Windows 11 24H2, and it does not seem to apply Styles at all.

What I have tried:

Here's a video showing everything that (doesn't) happen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWBvVbSjYLw

The only thing it does seem to do is switch the Dark/Light OS mode back and forth when selected. What other information can I provide to help debug this? I would really love to rock the Whistler Watercolor style on here :)

 

edit: For anybody else who winds up in this situation, try a Windhawk hook or SecureUxTheme, since they both work fine and all Stardock will do is try to convince you that it's your fault their software doesn't work lol

windowblinds
22,471 views 32 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting sdRohan, reply 25

I am running out of options for you, I am afraid.

I suppose we are looking at this a little differently, since I view a bug report like this as something that is helping you (Stardock) as much as it is helping me :)

Quoting sdRohan, reply 25

Do I believe that if you had a standard Windows install, it would work, most certainly.

Perhaps true, but this is still entirely speculation on your part since it's still an entirely silent failure in WB. If such a silent failure is possible to trigger in WB using only those options supplied by the OS maker, the inability to detect that scenario and show a warning message is still something that WindowBlinds needs to fix. WindowBlinds by virtue of being customization software has self-selected into a customer base which is more likely to customize their computers in other ways.

Quoting sdRohan, reply 25

If you have verified that the WindowBlinds service is running and there are no crashes, I am not sure what else to suggest after all the other advice has been given.

As a developer, here's what I would do next:

  • Appreciate the extremely thorough bug report and try to get a reproduction case on a WB dev's machine, perhaps on a fresh Windows 11 VM using the unattended deployment XML I've been provided.
  • Take a look at whatever interaction is “cutting off early” as mentioned here by bdsams. Luckily computers don't run on “looks like”, so it will be possible to introduce some debug logging where something is invoking something else and is known to be the failure point.
  • If a reproduction case can be found and it isn't due to something WB can directly accommodate, introduce an error message telling the user what is wrong instead of failing silently. There is already precedent for WB detecting and alerting for unsuitable conditions as shown by the “not installed correctly” message.

 

As a developer I also understand that these things take time, that other work on WindowBlinds may take precedence, and that other products may take precedence over WindowBlinds as developer attention is finite. 

What I would not expect to be able to tell someone for whom my software is silently failing:

 

Reply #27 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting gigadelic, reply 26

a customer base which is more likely to customize their computers in other ways.

I have to agree with you there. I used Object Bar/Object Dock/WindowBlinds a lot in the past alongside other customization tweaks & it usually all played nice. You'd think something designed for customization would find ways to play nice with other forms of customization these days.

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Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting bobj420, reply 27

You'd think something designed for customization would find ways to play nice with other forms of customization these days.

That might be your wish, but unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. The 0s and 1s have rules they follow. If you configure a system the special, uncommon way you want, a program isn't going to adapt itself to that. It can't. It does what it's coded to do. 

It's illogical to expect software to become aware and change it's programming to fit any given system. It's equally illogical to expect a software company to change its software for one customer's system.

Instead, Support has tried hard to find a way to accomplish what the OP wanted but it just doesn't seem it's in the cards, this time.

Sometimes you just have to say (regrettably), "sorry, we'd liked to have helped you, but we couldn't" as the answer despite everyone wanting it to have been otherwise.

 

Reply #29 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting gigadelic, reply 26


Quoting sdRohan,
reply 25

I am running out of options for you, I am afraid.


I suppose we are looking at this a little differently, since I view a bug report like this as something that is helping you (Stardock) as much as it is helping me :)

Quoting sdRohan,
reply 25

Do I believe that if you had a standard Windows install, it would work, most certainly.


Perhaps true, but this is still entirely speculation on your part since it's still an entirely silent failure in WB. If such a silent failure is possible to trigger in WB using only those options supplied by the OS maker, the inability to detect that scenario and show a warning message is still something that WindowBlinds needs to fix. WindowBlinds by virtue of being customization software has self-selected into a customer base which is more likely to customize their computers in other ways.

Quoting sdRohan,
reply 25

If you have verified that the WindowBlinds service is running and there are no crashes, I am not sure what else to suggest after all the other advice has been given.


As a developer, here's what I would do next:

 

    • Appreciate the extremely thorough bug report and try to get a reproduction case on a WB dev's machine, perhaps on a fresh Windows 11 VM using the unattended deployment XML I've been provided.

 

    • Take a look at whatever interaction is “cutting off early” as mentioned here by bdsams. Luckily computers don't run on “looks like”, so it will be possible to introduce some debug logging where something is invoking something else and is known to be the failure point.

 

    • If a reproduction case can be found and it isn't due to something WB can directly accommodate, introduce an error message telling the user what is wrong instead of failing silently. There is already precedent for WB detecting and alerting for unsuitable conditions as shown by the “not installed correctly” message.

 


 

As a developer I also understand that these things take time, that other work on WindowBlinds may take precedence, and that other products may take precedence over WindowBlinds as developer attention is finite. 

What I would not expect to be able to tell someone for whom my software is silently failing:

To be clear, 'works on 99.99% of PC's WB is installed on. 

There are countless ways a Windows install can be customized: settings, mods, third-party tools, drivers, hardware differences, and so on. With that level of variability, no developer can realistically guarantee perfect compatibility with every heavily customized setup.

We have tried to help, repeatedly, across several staff replies. We’ve gone through the steps you provided, tested the scenarios we could reproduce, and looked for overlaps with any known issues. But with the configuration you’re running - and the number of system-level changes involved, we can’t match your environment closely enough (settings, 3rd party apps, drivers, harware, etc) to reproduce the behavior on our side.

Your reports have been detailed, welcomed, and genuinely appreciated. The difficulty is that you're currently the only person experiencing this specific issue, and the highly customized nature of your setup makes it unlikely that others will encounter the same thing. Given limited time and resources, and everything already on the WB roadmap, that does affect how much deeper we can realistically dig.

If additional users report the same behavior or we find a reproducible case internally, it will absolutely increase the priority.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

 

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Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting DrJBHL, reply 28

If you configure a system the special, uncommon way you want, a program isn't going to adapt itself to that. It can't. It does what it's coded to do. 

It's illogical to expect software to become aware and change it's programming to fit any given system.

Nobody said anything like this. You are making up some absurd nonsense and malattributing it.

 

Quoting sdRohan, reply 29

To be clear, 'works on 99.99% of PC's WB is installed on. 

The difficulty is that you're currently the only person experiencing this specific issue, and the highly customized nature of your setup makes it unlikely that others will encounter the same thing.


Respectfully, a “logical” mind would recognize that this kind of edge-case failure is often indicative of some latent flawed assumptions regarding some particular programming interface or software/service interaction (IPC/RPC/etc). When those flawed assumptions wind up in shipping software, the software will end up “accidentally working” on the majority of systems where those assumptions hold true despite being technically incorrect under the hood. Finding and fixing these types of flaws makes the software more robust for everyone, not just me. The fact that it is possible at all for the software to fail silently, at all, from any triggering condition, should be considered a defect to be fixed.

Quoting sdRohan, reply 29

But with the configuration you’re running - and the number of system-level changes involved, we can’t match your environment closely enough

If […] we find a reproducible case internally

Hi, just checking, did you see the unattended XML I shared here? Drop this file into the root of a Windows 11 24H2 installer image, fire it up in a VM, and you will have an exact duplicate of my install-time settings in maybe an hour tops :)

Quoting gigadelic, reply 21

No need to recall; here's my complete `autounattend.xml`, edited only to redact my legit Windows 11 Product Key and the unhashed passwords used for creation of my non-Microsoft-Account: https://0g.gg/?9440cf1f45fe196a#oZGvYbMWieDZ7SpPVBFS4eXcwpM2VcDj1Cg9d5TKu5R


I do agree that it's a waste of time for all involved to be speaking in purely speculative terms as we have been, and as we continue to.

We need explicit debugging output for one specific interaction: whatever happens under the hood when one clicks the “Apply style to desktop” button, where WBConfig is (I assume) invoking the WB Service to Do The Thing via whatever IPC/LPC/RPC mechanism Windows uses. Without that information it is impossible to do more than guess, and guessing is a waste of time.

What I am asking for:

  1. Use my unattended XML to create a duplicate of my software setup.
  2. Add or enable debug logging (i.e. to a text file) around what happens when the “Apply style to desktop” button is clicked in WBConfig. Something is invoking something else there, and debug logging will say what that call is and very likely also why it failed.
  3. If unwilling or unable to do (1), tell me how to enable debug logging in the public build of WB and/or share a debug-enabled build with me here so I may try it and report back.
  4. Then and only then would be it possible to judge how much work something would take to fix and how many users/scenarios it is likely to affect.

I understand that you have both offered a lot of suggestions, and I am appreciative of that, but from a software-engineering/debugging point of view we haven't tried anything at all. We are at step zero and have been for this entire thread. There are no logs, so how can anyone say anything at all about what is or isn't the trigger and what is or isn't out of scope?

Reply #31 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting gigadelic, reply 30

I do agree that it's a waste of time for all involved to be speaking in purely speculative terms as we have been, and as we continue to.

We need explicit debugging output for one specific interaction: whatever happens under the hood when one clicks the “Apply style to desktop” button, where WBConfig is (I assume) invoking the WB Service to Do The Thing via whatever IPC/LPC/RPC mechanism Windows uses. Without that information it is impossible to do more than guess, and guessing is a waste of time.

What I am asking for:

Use my unattended XML to create a duplicate of my software setup.
Add or enable debug logging (i.e. to a text file) around what happens when the “Apply style to desktop” button is clicked in WBConfig. Something is invoking something else there, and debug logging will say what that call is and very likely also why it failed.
If unwilling or unable to do (1), tell me how to enable debug logging in the public build of WB and/or share a debug-enabled build with me here so I may try it and report back.
Then and only then would be it possible to judge how much work something would take to fix and how many users/scenarios it is likely to affect.
I understand that you have both offered a lot of suggestions, and I am appreciative of that, but from a software-engineering/debugging point of view we haven't tried anything at all. We are at step zero and have been for this entire thread. There are no logs, so how can anyone say anything at all about what is or isn't the trigger and what is or isn't out of scope?

Thank you for your feedback and suggestions; they will be seriously considered. 

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Reply #32 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting gigadelic, reply 30

Nobody said anything like this. You are making up some absurd nonsense and malattributing it.

The quoting mechanism is working quite well, therefore no one is making up anything, nor misattributing it.

Please reread the last sentence in reply 27. My reply clearly was to bobj420 the bold font is mine to make finding what I quoted easier for you: bobj420 quoted you [in the small box]. I quoted him [in the large box] and changed his font to bold to emphasize the fact [to you] that I'm quoting him.

Quoting bobj420, reply 27


Quoting gigadelic,
reply 26

a customer base which is more likely to customize their computers in other ways.


I have to agree with you there. I used Object Bar/Object Dock/WindowBlinds a lot in the past alongside other customization tweaks & it usually all played nice. You'd think something designed for customization would find ways to play nice with other forms of customization these days.