I don't want WB moving my skins!!!

well one option is to have your skins on the drive you want, then only install a few skins at a time into windowblinds, this will keep the file size to a minimum. worth a try

The developer left this comment in the anouncement thread.

Reply • Quote Neil BanfieldSeptember 20, 2007 07:06:32Reply #40
The location where WB looks for skins is set by two registry keys. They must be set to the same directory.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Stardock\WindowBlinds\wb5.ini\Installed\Path

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Stardock\WindowBlinds\wb5.ini\Installed\Path

If you want to put your skins elsewhere then you can change those keys and copy ALL of the directories off the current WB skin directory to that directory.

From Neil in the announcement post (reply #40):

I am so fricken; slow some days.
Thanks NT.
 

Yeah, but much cleaner.

Ok, thanks. Gonna try to change those paths and move the skins to where I want them to be. The problem is Windowblinds take a LOT of time moving the skins after the install and I was looking for a fix that prevented that.

Anyway, thanks again for your support.

What about asking the user if he/she wants this?

Hi,
I've reinstalled WB6 to try the registry fix, it asked for a reboot, I did so and it didn't run after that. I've tried to launch manually and it asked, again, for a reboot. I've tried the third button (I don't remember the label) but it didn't help.

I've unistalled WB again and gonna try to reinstall it later but I'm loosing my faith:(

It *is* a beta. 

I have more faith in Stardock's betas than many company's releases but I also know that there's a risk in using them.
One of the collest things about the Stardock betas are that the devs actually listen to the user's feedback.

So please, try again later.  The more information you provide, the better a product we all get.

I've got a lot of faith in SD but making a regedit on a beta seems a tad unsure.

I agree.  If it were an issue for me, I'd roll back to the last stable build I had and wait for the next build.

Is there anyway the installer could check for OS version? If it finds XP, then leave the WB skins directory alone?

If I change the registry keys to keep my original folder, are subsequent updates going to change those reg keys back to c:\documents and settings\all users...?

I, also, do not have anywhere near enough room to hold all those WBs on my C: drive

Just curious ... if the WB skins were to be moved, why not in the Stardock folder under My Documents same as the ObjectDock Library and Soundpackager folders.

It would be nice to have a little consistency ... having one program put its files here and another putting its files there helter skelter makes it a bit of a pain to keep track of for backups, etc.

My Documents is a per user location which is not suitable for WB skins.

WB skins must be placed somewhere where all users can read the skins or you get into having multiple copies of skins for each user account and what to do if a user runs an app as another user etc.

Makes sense ... Thanks Neil

Hi,
@Zubaz: I know it's a beta, I've just exaggerated a little, therefore, I'm here again.

After saving all my skins, icons, gadgets etc., I've uninstalled everything: WindoBlinds, DesktopX, IconPackager, even SDCentral etc. After that, rebooted, and then, used RegEdit to clean up all traces left behind by Wise (not so wise) uninstaller
After that, I've launched ZTreeWin and deleted all directories that the (not so) Wise uninstaller missed.

Now, after reinstalling SDCentral and WindowBlinds, everything is working fine. WindowBlinds is not asking for a boot after boot anymore. But what I've asked before, if possible, and I think it is, is to offer us users the option to decide if we want the WB skins we install available "just for me" or for "all users". A lot of installation programs do that, why WB cannot do the same? Someone said it's a feature required for Vista but I'm on XP. Whatever, can it be done?

Thank you for your attention - Roberto Gadelha

P.S.: I don't care if "you get into having multiple copies of skins for each user account and what to do if a user runs an app as another user". I could handle that. In my computer that's just ME. I want an option where I can choose how it will be handled, that's all

Sorry, no SPAM intended, but I have to say that I respect Stardock and its devs A LOT.
If not, I wouldn't be here. I love you all, I'm just asking for a feature that I think should be good for me. Maybe a little selfish, but maybe not. I read other posts asking for this.

Thank you all - Love you all - Peace

I agree. Offering it as a choice is the way to go in reguards to functionality.I would bet that a huge portion of WB users have single account PCs and some even disable shared folders for security purposes.

Not trying to start a poll but I have to go with Stardock's keeping them out of the Program Files directory. A step in the right direction I'd say. I'd also have to vote for being able to define the path for the skins though.

NO. No. No. No. No Way. My skins are private. No one is to use them unless asked. I share my computer with too many people to have eveybody sharing my skins. Or as I have just discovered deleting and changing others. This violates my privacy. I've made a decision to go back and uninstall WB6 to the previous version. This is not the way ANY program should behave. I did agree to the moving of my skins though and I thought that they were being just moved to another folder in the Stardock folder and not across the drive to a public shared folder. To move all my personal data files out to a shared folder .... I'm mad. I've been a WC user for awhile now and never have I been so angry with Stardock for this that....I've thought....to cancel my subscription....I'm angry. And I've also just noticed that all the SoundPackager files are now stored in My Documents folder. What gives? I want all my Stardock stuff in my Program Files folder. My Documents folder is stuffed to bursting! I can't find my anything in there anymore because of all the junk placed in there. Music, Videos, Wallpaper, now sound and Windowblind skins!

WindowBlinds has a requirement that all skins are stored in a location that can at least be read by every user on the machine.

Microsoft believe than an app consists of executable files and data files and that user data files should not be stored off \program files.

These two requirements mean there are only 2 suitable locations for the WB skins.  Common documents (which is where they are now) and common application data.  App data is hidden away and is very difficult for a user to get to so common documents (also known as shared documents or public documents - Microsoft keeps on changing the name) was considered to be the most suitable location.

Old Crab: Even with WB 5 your skins could be edited or deleted by any other user on the system (or applied as all they need to do is run wbconfig)

I can see XP users are going to be affected by Vista now whether we have it or not. But at least we can...or at least I hope we can define through the registry where the skins are going to be for XP users. I saw someone in another thread though saying it wasn't working for them...I really hope this isn't the case.

While I understand the crap you guys have to go through with Microsoft...I don't think XP users should have to be subjected to the problems Vista users have to go through now. Just my 2 cents.

No. Please no.
I really do not like it when programs puts its files in My Documents. They way I see it it's meant to be, for just that; documents. I don't want a bunch of application settings and other stuff there.

Unfortunately many applications do this, so I'm forced to use a completely separate folder to store my documents so I can organize the folder to my liking.

I can see the point. But then you got people like me that doesn't install apps to Program Files, except for those that doesn't even ask you where to install itself.
I create my own hierarchy of folder structure to where I install my programs and keep my data files.
Would it be possible to have an advanced button, on the message box which informs you about the move, which will allow you to choose where to install it?
It's good that there is the registry setting to manually set where to store it. So power users can edit it them self. But it's not something people would simply know about without some digging.

Like RGadelha I don't have much space on the OS partition of some of my computers. This is because I dualboot and keep most things on a shared partition leaving the OS partition rather small.