Subj : Re: Thin client PC to run
To   : Nightfox
From : Lordwoodoo
Date : Thu Dec 04 2025 00:07:42

  Re: Re: Thin client PC to run
  By: Nightfox to Lordwoodoo on Wed Dec 03 2025 05:22 pm

 Ni> A while ago, I read that Microsoft was planning to eliminate the old
 Ni> Control Panel altogether..  I'm glad they haven't yet.

 Lo>> Reading this, I remember using Stardock Software to customize my desktop.
 Lo>> Crazy themes you downloaded. And Windows Blinds, etc.. It was fun!

 Ni> I still use Stardock Window Blinds.  But these days, it can't skin all
 Ni> apps anymore, because there's new & alternate GUI drawing functionality in
 Ni> newer versions of Windows that some software is using now (starting with
 Ni> Windows 10, or maybe Windows 8), so those programs won't get skinned by
 Ni> WindowBlinds.  And apparently it's something that 3rd-party apps like
 Ni> WindowBlinds can't hijack, or else Stardock probably would have already
 Ni> updated WindowBlinds to do so. I have a feeling one reason Microsoft has
 Ni> done that is that for some reason they don't want 3rd-party apps to be
 Ni> able to customize the GUI in Windows.

It's a shame that it's no longer possible to customize like before. Sometimes it felt like we weren't really on Windows anymore, the themes completely transformed the desktop. Windows 10 has changed a lot of things. Not really for the better, unfortunately. It's a stable system nonetheless.

 Ni> Probably due to that, there aren't a whole lot of WindowBlinds themes
 Ni> being developed, so there aren't a lot to choose from, unless you want to
 Ni> get into making your own WindowBlinds themes (which I imagine could be
 Ni> fairly tedious).

Yes, the complete Stardock suite offered a theme editor to create your own themes and potentially share them with the community. They had a utility that scanned hard drives to see what was taking up space. Very useful for starting a good cleanup or organization.

There was also Joe Garage blog (?!) with an RSS app, I remember. I really liked it a lot.


 Ni> GUI themes & skinning works a lot better in Linux GUI environments,
 Ni> probably because they were made to support that, whereas Windows wasn't.


I love Linux and I've been a long-time user, but I've never really explored these possibilities under Linux. I'll have to take a look!! :0)

Regards, 
..: Lord Woodoo :.
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