Brad it's all 5 of them I can't download. Quest came as a through SDC, Flyers I bought and came as a Flyers MyColors.exe, so I have both of them. WinterWonderland I got free with the Flyers which won't download and Sins and Gyre I bought.

Do you have any third party firewall / networking software running?

Not with Sins, it has some kind of protection on it where ALL the images have the noise filter applied to them. You need MyColors installed or else it isn't going to work. And this is quite recent as I've used the extracting method for Boston Celtics...etc

Neil I thought of that too I turned everything off. The picture downloaded and I even tried "Run as Administrator". I tried what Brad said on my other computer and I got "Error validating registration code" and same with the rest of the codes. The Flyers came to me as Philadelphia Flyers MyColors.exe file. If that means anything.

Sounds like a good way to protect copyrighted work to me.

Phoon: MyColor files are .mycolors files going forward. That are not compatible with the old Theme Manager.

See what Daiwa wrote.

Ah. Very interestig.  I'll personally look into that.

Indeed.  We got tired of new suites being instantly available on websites for download "free". 

Protect it all you want - if I pay for something it should be what I thought I paid for...
ie... are even past themes for my colors also going to be encrypted now too? If so I will asking for a refund on all of those themes also. When I bought the themes there was nothing about the theme being encrypted.
My reason is simple... most of these themes do not work correctly with Vista. They have to be edited. Which I have done in the past with little reason to say much of anything to anyone. But if these themes are to now be encrypted - I will not be purchasing anymore. Thus also be asking for a refund on those I have already purchased also.
The latest crashed my Vista computer completely. I thought it was something to do with hardware. But after going through support for the machine that I have - it came down to a flash download for the Bio and a reinstall of Vista to correct the problems I had with this on Saturday. [when it all started.]

I even just today tried to install again for screenshots on my xp machine and found it almost crashed it. I quickly took what screenies I could and unistalled everything and cleaned up. There for a while I got worried. And as of now am very unimpressed with this new move to encrypt files[images] to protect such software.

I am very unhappy!

SGT

ps my colors is nowhere on any of my computers. thats a bad deal - I have several themes too!

Look, if you guys think you're being treated unfairly then by all means, ask for a refund and you'll get it.  We want you to be happy and if that means refunding you for your themes we'll do it.

The days of premium suites being unecrypted are over. I'm sorry to say that but the sales rates of the suites that weren't encrypted versus the ones that are are night and day. 

I totally agree with you that the transition is a pain in the butt. The existing ones are being updated to Vista so it's a transitional issue and of course all new ones are pretty seamless.  But they all will be encyprted and you'll be able to run them either via WindowBlinds (for the skins), IconPackager (for the icons) and the gadgets rae in their own directory.  But you won't be able to edit the images yourself in photoshop or whatever because they're encrypted.

 

How are you getting themes at this point without installing MyColors?

They will still post the wb's for free and all that even encrypted! That solves nothing and cause's more damage than good.
When you say premium suites - do you mean those that are sold via stardock wb's and such too?
Or is this just my colors?
And what about the ones being released via stardock central to members elite?

SGT

I'm not !

Going forward, most of our premium content will have encrypted images.

There's no question that this is a better way for us because sales are much MUCH better.  Previously, we'd release a suite and it would be, within a day, posted on various forums everywhere.  We're not talking bit torrent even.  There are various sites (which we've had discussions here on WC about before) that literally host and distribute this stuff.  And that's not counting the various ports or rips that would occasionally appear on various sites.

Since releasing encrypted themes, that went away and in turn sales went way up.

If it weren't for encryption, premium suites would have been dead. We would have simply stopped making them.

For 99% of users, it's completely seamless. A user sees a theme, they buy it and it just works.  Most people aren't interested in editing the images.  I realize that's a show stopper for you and I'm really sorry about that but we're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I think that's right Phoon I have 2 MyColors themes now and they did install their WB components and IP components so that they can be directly applied from WB and IP independently of MyColors. Works just like the old Theme Manager that way.

SGT, most of the premium stuff so far has been XP only.  Those are now being converted to Vista.  You should be fine going forward as things get updated.

Assume that there was a business need to make these changes.  Assume that Brad's not out to screw you and everyone else having problems.  Assume that Stardock is making changes to keep them on a place where they can continue to provide apps and skins and support.

It hasn't been that long since this all rolled out.  As you have done in the past, give SD some time.  They've always provided exemplary support {excepting the loss of security settings in DX2.5 . . but I'm not bitter.  no really . . I almost never think about it any more . . really. -sigh-). They will make this right.  it'll be OK.  Trust your old friend Zubaz . . have I ever let you down?    

I'll stop buying them then too...
I've had to edit every skin thuis far and have said nothing to doing so for something I had to pay for.
But I will not pay for encrypted images that I can not work with for my system.
That and be worried also about things causing my system to crash.

It is show stopper for me.

I'm out of this thread - good luck - to your problem.
This a sad day for Stardock - I've lost my faith.

SGT  

Thanks Brad. If you want to concentrate on one try Gyre.

I don't have an issue at all with Premium skins being encrypted. I've seen premiums on other sites (man what a bundle I've saved!! JOKING THERE!!!!) I've never downloaded them at all.
I don't need to edit Premiums (unless I am using them as a learning tool). Good move to cut down on the piracy.
Point being, in my case, I don't want to rely on a " theme manager " of any type. I like the flexibilty of applying them via their separate components, like WB and Icon Packager. As long as I can use MyColors as that extraction tool to apply them with those apps then I'm ok.

Well there is one significant difference I wasn't aware of until now the folders are in their respective theme directories for WB and IP alright but... the graphics image encryption causes the native graphics file .bmp or .png for example to appear has random multicolored dot blobs. Since I like to use the original graphics images to make, for my own use, desktop themes or in the case of my Knot Vista DX uploads for IR this would hamper and limit my enjoyment of OD. Does this mean that MyColors Icons will no longer be able to be loaded into say Icon Developer? Sounds limiting. Any legetimate workarounds for customers in good standing?

Seems to me that having fully skinned themes that don't need to be fixed\edited would solve all this.

Master skins \ Premium theme's etc...should already meet this criteria.

Now if someone is modding for personal preference, thats a different matter but I believe very few people actually do that and they can always choose not to purchase, knowing beforehand, they cant mod.

Having said that, I'm all for encryption, taping themes up in plastic bags with seals, chastity belt etc..  

What's good for the goose [every other type of digital content\software]

Yea, both WB and IconPackager were updated to support the encrypted format so you could use MyColors Theme Manager as purely an extraction program if you want.

Except ones that were made before a Vista version of WB was available.  Those had to be updated and they're coming on line at a pretty rapid clip (i.e. several a week).

You'll still be able to use IconDeveloper for that sort of thing and export.  It's the skins in particular that we were focusing on.

Seems fair to me