Office 2007 Problem

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Running Windowblinds5 - Blackcomb is the skin that I want to run. All works fine except that when I go into settings mode from Xcel for example, Xcel fires up a new window. Due to some of the color settings most of the text is invisible (white on white) I can fix by setting properties appearence 3d text to any color other than white. All is fine after I do this until I log out and return. Everything goes back to default. Have tried everything to no avail. Uninstalled 5 and installed WB 4. Same issue until I found in the basic settings area an option to "not use skin colors". If I uncheck this I can reset the colors that I need and they will stay set. Only problem is that WB4 does not skin ie7 properly?? For some reason there are far fewer basic options in WB5 vs WB4

Just a beginner

Thanks
wincustomize
982 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

WB4 was produced well before the release of both IE7 and WB5. This accounts for the lack of support in skinning IE7. I am not a coder, but have read a few comments by the lead developer that IE7 handles things differently than IE6 does. This placed a hold on the development of skinning IE7, and limited it to WB5 only due to the fact that it is the current version being developed.

As for the lack of options in WB5, I have noticed this as well and have to assume that it has to do with one or more of the following:

1 - requested and/or utilized options over the course of the WB4 life span (I believe that WB4 will become obsolescent within one year of the release of Vista, if it is not already there).

2 - code changes and focus of the WB5 features and the resulting final product.

3 - time constraints for coding the newer versions, which may have placed less used options lower on the list and not completed.

4 - some functionality may be best applied using SkinStudio, and therefore the development team may have opted to have users apply some customizations by editing a skin.

I suspect that the final release of a 'Vista compatible' WB5 may have better support for both Office 2007 and IE7.

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

It sounds like the problem you are having is a colour scheme choice in that skin which does not work with Excel due to a flaw in excel itself (using system colours for text colour, but hardcoding the background colour).  The exact same thing could be reproduced without WB by setting the classic colours in the same way.

WB5 and above do not allow you to disable the skin systemwide colour scheme and the best solution would be to edit the skin in skinstudio.

WB5 has less options than WB4 in the UI screen simply because the options no longer did anything on XP and had not since WB4.0 in some cases. 

Corky_O: The last WB4 release was about 1.5 years ago.  As for better support for office 2007 and IE7, the current released builds of WB5 have no issues with either of them.

Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
George -

To flesh this out a little, you can open the skin for editing in SkinStudio (a free download from Stardock), change the text colors in its "Classic Colors" section, save the skin, then re-apply the skin and from that point on the text color change will "stick". Sounds like you were changing the text color in Display Properties Appearance Tab; that change will only survive the current session & the Classic Colors designated in the skin itself get applied on reboot

Happy New Year.
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
WB5 has less options than WB4 in the UI screen simply because the options no longer did anything on XP and had not since WB4.0 in some cases


I think the new UI choices (removing some of the options) makes WB significantly easier for new users and is a good choice for Stardock.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Corky_O: The last WB4 release was about 1.5 years ago. As for better support for office 2007 and IE7, the current released builds of WB5 have no issues with either of them.

Thanks, Neil.