14 DAY TRIAL // Give me some change please
Yes, everyone's grown mundane looking at the typical Windows XP themes. Yes we want more and we'll do almost anything to get some variation in our lives. Yes we'll even go as far as trying WindowBlinds 5 to change the boring look that we've become so complacent with.
WindowBlinds 5 offers you a chance to get away from your typical XP theme and step out of the box for a change. It allows you to fully alter the look and feel of Windows to your set preferences.
What's Inside
The install itself was a bit tricky since it tells you to switch to Windows Classic Mode. For some inexperienced users, this might be a little tricky since some might not even know where this option is let alone switch back and forth between themes. After the install, WindowBlinds throws you directly to a window where you are allowed to start manipulating your visual scheme.
Here you're allowed to adjust the settings to your skins, toolbars, animations, basic settings, user overrides, or per individual application. But you're not allowed to access the animations menu in the demo, so don't try.
WindowBlinds revolves around the user community since it lets users create new themes/skins that you can download and have for yourself. WindowBlinds can skin things like the console windows, progress animations, toolbar icons, logoff dialogs to list a few.
A nice feature about it is that it's fully aware that it's mostly a visual program so it supports ATI and NVIDIA hardware acceleration. The issue most users would want to know about is stability. Well worry not, because the program as a whole is fairly stable, it only hiccupped when I had many applications running at once. As for it being a system hog, I didn't notice any major flulctuations with my system's RAM.
Uh oh
But I did have trouble with it in other departments. I was constantly testing to see if every skin fits with the available toolbar setting. I was going back and forth between the 'Aura' and 'Noire' theme when things started to turn ugly.
I noticed on one of the skin changes there was a little something left over on my desktop. It looked like the top part of a window had managed to get stuck on my desktop. I tried a simple rollover, but that didn't do the trick nor would a skin change, so I was left with a little extra present on my desktop that I couldn't modify, move, or get rid of.
As I was on the 'Aura' skin, I tried to change back to my original XP theme when things went downhill. My desktop froze up a bit, colors went awry, I was no longer in Kansas. I desperately tried to switch back to my Classic theme, but that wouldn't work. It wouldn't even switch back to my XP Theme.
Well, the only thing that was running through my mind was that I was glad I had made a system restore. I didn't enjoy dealing with the issues that WindowBlinds brought to my system.
The Good
It has some sweet skins and themes that you can personalize and modify to your liking. You're bound to find something that you can replace the boring XP theme with.
The Bad
I ran into some bugs when I tested out WindowBlinds. You do have to remember that you're going to dish out some money for the final product if you want access to all the cool skins.
The Truth
For those who want to have some cool themes running on your PC, you're going to like this product. You can modify nearly anything and you could definitely make it look better than the drab XP Theme. Watch out cause you might experience some bugs along the way.
Check out some screenshots below.
