Just curious.

I've been away from things the last year or so, due to family issues and being pretty sick myself, and so just now decided to renew my Object Desktop and Wincustomize subscriptions.

The wincustomize subscription renewal completed immediately, with no issues, but I got some sort of error / informational message from the Object Desktop renewal. Don't remember the text of the error offhand, it was something like, 'we'll be in contact', or words to that effect (as a side note, I was still actually charged (pending) for the renewal).

What's the deal here? Are you manually approving / disapproving the purchase of Object Desktop subscriptions? If so, why charge my account before  said approval?

And, why would the Wincustomize subscription take immediately, but I then get forced to wait for the Object Desktop sub?

It just seems kind of odd, that's all. I tend to figure that when I buy something, and then get charged for it, I then get access to that 'something'.

So, what's up?

Just curious.

I've been away from things the last year or so, due to family issues and being pretty sick myself, and so just now decided to renew my Object Desktop and Wincustomize subscriptions.

The wincustomize subscription renewal completed immediately, with no issues, but I got some sort of error / informational message from the Object Desktop renewal. Don't remember the text of the error offhand, it was something like, 'we'll be in contact', or words to that effect (as a side note, I was still actually charged (pending) for the renewal).

What's the deal here? Are you manually approving / disapproving the purchase of Object Desktop subscriptions? If so, why charge my account before  said approval?

And, why would the Wincustomize subscription take immediately, but I then get forced to wait for the Object Desktop sub?

It just seems kind of odd, that's all. I tend to figure that when I buy something, and then get charged for it, I then get access to that 'something'.

So, what's up?

I'm seeing a bit of an issue with the last two betas (noticed it on the last one, figured I'd wait and see if it was fixed in the current one, but no such luck).

The explorer background transparency isn't working. All other transparent WB parts (titlebars, menus, etc.) work fine, textures work fine, etc., but the explorer background is always opaque (it does show the selected background texture). Even worse, the more I set the slider to transparent (below the default settings, at least), the darker the background becomes (i.e., if I set to maximum transparency, the explorer background is completely black).

The explorer background transparency worked fine on this computer prior to the last two beta releases, and nothing else was changed in the interim (this issue showed up specifically when I upgraded to the next beta version of WB7).

Additionally, I also don't see the difference between the active and inactive explorer window backgrounds (they appear to be the same, regardless of how differently I set them in the configuration, and regardless of the level of transparency that is set).

Also, I have already tried uninstalling and reinstalling WindowBlinds (just in case).

The info from WB is pasted below (basically, this is a laptop, with 64 bit Win7 installed):

Your computer has a Windows Experience Index base score of
Your Windows Graphics Experience score is 3.9

WindowBlinds version : WindowBlinds 7.0 (build 228 - Windows 7 Edition) - 64 bit OS

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC
WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC
(Generic PnP Monitor) 1 is attached to ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series (Microsoft Corporation WDDM 1.1)

Wblind.dll         2009/10/29 12:32:20
Wblind64.dll         2009/10/29 12:32:19
Wbsrv.dll         2009/11/04 09:22:58
SevenConfig.exe         2009/11/04 15:15:08
Wbload.exe         2009/10/22 06:40:12
Wbhelp.dll         2009/10/07 14:35:07
Tray.dll              2009/10/21 08:13:19
Wbload.dll              2009/09/25 07:41:29
Screen.exe         2009/11/04 09:22:01

From the looks of things, Microsoft seems to be so smitten by their marketing that they believe that you'll always want to hear the default Vista startup sound, no matter what.

Here's a portion of a quote (from the Scobleizer link) from Steve Ball, the program manager for audio video experience (oops, I mean excellence) team at Microsoft,

"The bottom line is that the rumors, stories, speculation about the new Windows Vista sound are true," Ball said, "but with a number of extreme qualifications."

The current plan, he tells me, is that there will be a pre-wired sound that plays when the system is ready for you to logon. This is the plan of record for quite a few months.

You can do other things with your attention and your eyes during cold boot without feeling like you have to watch and wait.

This will be a non-customizeable sound, and that’s been part of the plan for Windows Vista for many months, he said".



The overwhelming number of user comments on the scobleizer page are clearly in opposition to this idea. And it seems to me that most of those commenters aren't as attached to the idea of customization as the visitors to Wincustomize are.

Even if I didn't want to customize my PC, I would be unalterably opposed to this kind of thing. Being someone who enjoys customization, I see this as a much worse proposition.

Steve Ball mentions that they are 'listening' to these kind of comments, but the statements that he makes (including a couple in the comments section) indicates that Microsoft is dead set on providing this 'functionality'.

If I get Vista at some point, and it has this issue, I will look for a hack to disable it, as much as I hate the idea of those kind of hacks.

I updated to 3.3i and I lost the wb.ini setting to allow wb to skin things like the display properties dialog, etc., on XP, and I can't remember it to save my life

As I was searching for any mention of this (unsuccessfully) I was thinking it would be nice if there was a comprehensive document available that lists all of the possible settings.

Does anyone know of one? I've found some pages that have a few settings here and there, but I couldn't find more than a few options. Of course, this information may exist, having successfully eluded all my attempts to find it.

Thanks.