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Despite a few issues, WindowBlinds offers a compelling way to add some panache to Windows XP. In short, the program lets you skin Windows, offering a number of preconfigured themes that range in styles and change the entire look of your desktop. No matter what skin you choose, though, we doubt you'll have any complaints with the appearance of the polished, attractive themes. You also choose from several toolbar icon sets to match your skin of choice and tweak settings such as the size of the taskbar. WindowBlinds gets high marks for performance; we found the skins loaded seamlessly after a couple of seconds. However, we should note that the program takes up its fair share of RAM--65MB on our test machine. If you want to edit the themes through the program, you'll have to install the publisher's SkinStudio, and we missed the ability to reassociate a wallpaper image of our choice with our selected themes. On the plus side, the trial version lets you test the program for a full two months, which is very generous by today's standards. Anyone who sits in front of a computer all day will find that WindowBlinds helps liven up the experience. WindowBlinds - Change the look of your Windows - Download Video Previews:Publisher's Description
From Stardock:
Customize the look and feel of Windows XP with WindowBlinds. It's a Windows utility that enables users to personalize nearly every aspect of the Windows graphical user interface. It can "skin" your title bars, push buttons, Start bar, radio buttons, and nearly every other part of Windows. There are thousands of freely available skins to choose from. Use WindowBlinds to make Windows look like another operating system (Mac, Linux, etc.) or give it your own unique look and feel. You can also create your own skins using the freely available SkinStudio. WindowBlinds eliminates the need for any stay-resident program making it use virtually no extra memory. It also makes use of hardware acceleration found on most nVidia and ATI cards resulting in an overall performance increase.
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All versions:
3.6 starsout of 707 votes
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Current version:
3.8 starsout of 108 votes
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My rating:
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"NO PC lag.......yet"
Version: WindowBlinds 5.01
Pros
Awesome skins!!!! I thought it would slow down the system big time! Well.... this is not the case... good program!
Cons
Nothing so far...
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"dsa"
Version: WindowBlinds 5.01
Pros
dsa
Cons
dsa
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"Makes my computer look beautiful!"
Version: WindowBlinds 5.01
Pros
Fantasic features and the choice of skins is overwhelming.
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"great!"
Version: WindowBlinds 5.01
Pros
I really like this product because it allows me to change the way my XP looks without paying someone to do it. I like to personalize my computer and this is perfect for that. Plus.... you can go to websites and get new looks often (you don't even have to know how to do graphics.....people who like doing it, do it themselves and post them on websites to share!!)
Cons
I haven't found any..... well sometimes I want to make changes to a skin I like but can't because there is a secondary program you need. Other than that, I LOVE IT!!
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"Very Cool Program!"
Version: WindowBlinds 5.01
Pros
I love the new ways to change how your destop appears. I like the preinstalled options to start off with.
Cons
Didn't realize till i downloaded it, that it is only a 60 day free period. Guess I better start reading the small print! LOL! Actually I don't recall anything about 60 Day trial untill i installed the program, then they flashed a screeen of pay us 20 bucks and we will upgrade this, type of sign.
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"slowed down my compuetr big time"
Version: WindowBlinds 5.01
Pros
i wasn't even able to use the prog.
Cons
i have a pentium mobile notebook, 1.7ghz, 1gb ram and this program after launched slowed my computer like i never saw before.
Plus when i unistalled, zone lab's firewall detected a program was being install for windowsblind, weird, isn't???
you couldn't notice the prog unless you have a firewall. game me second thoughts about this program
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"fun but expensive"
Version: WindowBlinds 5.01
Pros
This is fun but a little on the expensive side for what you get.
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"Pretty vs performance"
Version: WindowBlinds 5.01
Pros
It lets you skin your computer with another theme other than the default Windows theme. It makes the look and feel of your computer a little more pleasing to the eye. Some skins allow you to launch WMP from it
Cons
Costs more resources. After using this, a regular default Windows skin looks too plain.
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"Unable to really use shareware without buying full version"
Version: WindowBlinds 5.01
Pros
Looks very nice. Has many different things which can be changed.
Cons
In my experience, the only thing I was able to change are the menu bars and tast bar. It looks nice, but this is far far to limited to really test anything out.
The program itself may be nice, but I'll never know because I was not able to do anything other than change the look of the menu bars and my internet explorer icons which I dont use. If I could actually test this product out, I might give it a better rating. Not worth the time, I'm uninstalling it now.
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"A good program"
Version: WindowBlinds 5.01
Pros
WindowBlinds allows computers to have XP like visual styles.
Cons
I ruined my XP installation with this. Vista visual style not included in the trial version. I recommend using uxtheme patcher for XP users those who need Vista's Aero visual style.
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