For ALL having trouble installing Windowblinds 5.51

from Stardock Forums
I HAVE VISTA BUSINESS X64


What silly programming.

Windowblinds cannot install properly due to it asking you to reboot everytime you try and start it up. This is due to a few things. The main problem is that the service cannot register itself if you try and install the program to anywhere other than the default location. After installing it to a different location, the service cannot start because it is looking to the default directory "C:\Program Files X86\Stardock\Object Desktop\WindowBlinds\VistaSrv.exe" to start the service. The service cannot register a different directory (at least on my machine). This is evidenced by double clicking the service in the service manager. If you try and say "start" it will tell you it can't for however many reasons, whatever.

I could however use it if I navigated to the directory that I installed it to and manually started VistaSrv.exe. I could then start windowblinds without having "TO RESTART". However this doesn't stick.

It an attempt to force it to work, I went into the registry and changed the default start location of the service to my specific directory that I installed it to. This seemingly fixed the problem and on reboot the service started and all seemed well. However when using the program it wasn't working properly, was taking forever to change any skins, and once it finally did change the skins they were all messed up and looked corrupt. I had to restart with Aero in order to get my desktop back.



ANYWAY... The fix was to install Windowblinds to its default location during the install. You can't choose a different directory. If you've already installed windowblinds, just uninstall it and reboot. Then reinstall but don't change the directory. Let it install it where it wants to. Then it works!

None of the "fixes" worked for me at all without needing to modify them...

THIS IS THE ONLY THING THAT WORKS FOR ME.
windowblinds
6,155 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
personally i cannot think of a single solitary sound reason to install it in anything *but* its default location. for all of us having problems installing WB this aint part of it

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
personally i cannot think of a single solitary sound reason to install it in anything *but* its default location. for all of us having problems installing WB this aint part of it



Well then you are not thinking very creatively if you cannot think of a single reason. How about for those of us that have seperate partitions and want to keep all of our programs in a "Programs" partition, and all of our games in a "Games" partition, etc...

And for some of you having problems, this very well may be part of it, despite what zoobabe says.
Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I dual boot XP32 & Vista64 and try to install all my 32bit apps onto a separate apps partiton and found that I had to do this registry 'fix' to get the Vista to find the service. I got the service started on boot but now explorer stops working, no windows will open and the sidebar won't open. Support is stumped, 3 times I've opened a ticket with no resolution. Maybe version 6 for V64 will be fixed. Sc0tt777@AOL.COM

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Are you trying to install to the same location under both OSes?

WindowBlinds installs files based on the OS you are running, so you cannot share an install directory between OSes as the wrong versions of wblind.dll etc will be installed.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
No, I was responding to the previous comment, WB writes the location in the registry of the service to c:\PF~1\SD~1\OD~1..., and vista and WB is installed on B:\ this is why I found I had to tweak the registry location back to install directory: B:\Program Files (x86)\Stardock\Object Desktop\WindowBlinds\VistaSrv.exe Yea, Each OS has it's own installation. It looks like all my issues stem from my Logitech G15 USB keyboard. When it's unplugged (All other usb plugged in) WB/Explorer work fine. When plugged in I get BSOD or explorer fails to open windows.