By Terry Currier
From Stardock WindowBlinds will not speed up your computer,
can’t recover lost memory, and it won’t defrag your hard drive. What it will do
however is put a “skin” layer over your Windows desktop and applications. The
term skin means that it works with the Windows GUI (Graphic User Interface) to
alter the look of every title bar, push button, taskbar and other parts of the
Windows interface. It works on all versions of Windows, and especially well on
Windows XP. Different users can sign on with Windows XP and have completely
different looks.
It is a program that can make your desktop a little cooler
looking and actually easier on the eyes. Its fun to go through all
the
different skins that come with the program to see which you like the most.
Then, if you want even more you can go to their web site and look at a few
hundred more. It has the ability to add additional GUI effects such as
transparent icon text, and apply wallpapers. If you don’t want the skin effect
on every application you can choose which to skinned, or even to have a
specific skin. So for Microsoft Word it could have its own unique look.
With compound skins a used skin can have several different
versions of itself included. Skins that support dynamic
colorizing in Windows
XP allow the user to change the color of the skin. Windows itself allows the
user up to three color options. WindowBlinds allows the user to pick from up to
16.8 million colors to apply to the skin. WindowBlinds cost $19.95 you can
download a free 30 day trial version from their home web site http://www.stardock.com. If you like it and
want to try making some skins of your own download the SkinStudio program. With
it you can make your own for any version of Windows. You can even import parts
of other skins so you don’t have to start over with everything. Authors can
associate sounds with different actions. For example when you click the close
button it will play a certain wave file. It cost $19.95 also.
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