Uxtheme VS WindowBlinds

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Not Bman

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This may seem like a dumb question, but I never bothered to question it so I wouldn't know. Since the beginning, when I first customized my desktop I hacked the uxtheme.dll, as many of us do. Since then I have tryed WB, which if you ask me, besides resouces being used, has much beutiful and better themes. It has more power, transparency and smoothing and all that.
I don't really see that when using vs, hacking uxtheme. I don't know why this is, or at least understand why.

Can anyone explain this whole thing too me?

Thanks
 
I never messed with hacking the .DLL, but the newest version of WB is MUCH improved on resources. Hardly a factor at all anymore IMO.
 
I like the uxtheme patch because it doesn't require any program to be running and it's free.
 
yea thats why I liked it, but why is WB more powerfull?
 
I refrain from using either of them because i think it will slow down my computer?
Are you saying that UXtheme doesn't require any programs to be open?
 
basically all the uxtheme.dll patch does is bypasses MS's stupidity of only allowing Microsoft's themes to be used on XP. pretty much makes it act like 98 and stuff could. just handled by windows itself, and not a 3rd party app.

As for why windowblinds is more powerful....... UXtheme can for the most part only change the layout and colors of the UI. Windowblinds seems to put a cover over the UI.
 
ElementalDragon said:
basically all the uxtheme.dll patch does is bypasses MS's stupidity of only allowing Microsoft's themes to be used on XP. pretty much makes it act like 98 and stuff could. just handled by windows itself, and not a 3rd party app.

Exactly :)
 
I use style xp. It uses no resources ..
 
really? last time i used StyleXP it had one seriously huge memory leak, and used quite a few resources.... and that wasn't too long ago.
 
Did I mention the uxtheme patch is free? :p

I like to run as few processes as possible so the uxtheme patch is perfect. Besides I don't change much on my system anyways. I disable animations and such.
 
I don't think they understood what 'free' meant. :p

I once asked my dad if I should get something on 'free' subscription for 12 months and his reply was.... 'No, it's too expensive!'
 
ming said:
I don't think they understood what 'free' meant. :p

I once asked my dad if I should get something on 'free' subscription for 12 months and his reply was.... 'No, it's too expensive!'
Ha!
I seem to remember something like that with my father ;)
I assume they thought we just wouldn't cancel it and then eventually pay.
 
ElementalDragon said:
basically all the uxtheme.dll patch does is bypasses MS's stupidity of only allowing Microsoft's themes to be used on XP. pretty much makes it act like 98 and stuff could. just handled by windows itself, and not a 3rd party app.

As for why windowblinds is more powerful....... UXtheme can for the most part only change the layout and colors of the UI. Windowblinds seems to put a cover over the UI.

that's the only reasoning for being more powerful, I wish uxtheme could do that same stuff WB does
 
uxtheme is a stripped down slightly customised version of the WB theme engine, thats why its so easy to convert styles to WB and vice versa..

AS for WB having nicer skins, etc. I oinly ever see the way over the top stuff and nothing worth using daily. If there was a site that listed decent stuff witout all those huge gradient filled window frames and horrid colour schemes I'd probably be more interested in it.
 
ElementalDragon said:
really? last time i used StyleXP it had one seriously huge memory leak, and used quite a few resources.... and that wasn't too long ago.

I never had an issue with resources and the use of it ...
 
LordOfLA said:
AS for WB having nicer skins, etc. I oinly ever see the way over the top stuff and nothing worth using daily. If there was a site that listed decent stuff witout all those huge gradient filled window frames and horrid colour schemes I'd probably be more interested in it.
That's exactly how I feel too. I find that the average quality of a regular msstyle theme tends to be far better than that of a WB theme. Of course, there are exceptions to this, but I have yet to see a theme that made me really want to go ahead and install WB.
 
the only reason I was checking out WB, is because of 2 themes. i just forgot there names, but the fact is, I want those, but still want to use uxtheme
 
Stardock is a Microsoft Partner (Gold). However, WB and other offerings from Stardock still use resources. The UXTheme patch only allows you to patch the file so you can use third party visual styles.

Using third party visual styles may add on to the explorer.exe process making it consume more resources, but WB and other offerings will use more compared to the patch.
 
if you install wb and disable the theme service you use less resources overall for wb than for the ms theme engine :)

It's probably nothing worth shouting about thoiugh :p
 
I disabled theme service with the patch, and ran WB, nothing worked, my whole screen screwed up, u need theme service enabled to run WB. This was before I started this thread, but now I guess I'll just stick to uxtheme, since I have been using it forever now lol
 

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