spectacular system crashes in some wb7 skins under windows 7 32 bit

eventually the whole system comes crashing down

from Stardock Forums

Hi,

I've successfully installed windowblinds 7 on my win 7 system and, using one of the Aero metal skins, it works fine, but I thought I'd experiment a little, and trying out several other skins (such as Luna Alt) and using the win 7 style, I got some really spectacular crashes, where everything stopped working (from open apps to system components, too many to mention before everything shuts down). I've gone back to Aero and it's fine, and I suspect that those other skins want more graphics memory than my system has available, but how can I be sure, and what can I do to use the other skins?

 

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

windowblinds
3,628 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Did you get an instant crash?

Are you using any sort of anti malware / virus package?

Also is this a 32 bit or 64 bit install?

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

The crash was right after WB7 had finished wearing the skin. It started with my apps (a.o. mozilla Seamonkey) stopping working. Everything went more or less sequentially until the system was overwhelmed.

Yes I am using anti-malware and antivirus. I have Avira 9 for antivirus, and Threatfire from PCTools resident for most other stuff. Also a firewall (zonealarm pro) which also has some limited antivirus capability.

Windows 7 is 32 bit. I am using onboard graphics for now, getting ready to go get a real graphics card, though.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Could you try without ThreatFire running to see if it has any impact?

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Good news. 

I have reproduced the problem (it is ThreatFire running thats causing the issue) and have worked around this.

The next WB beta update (if you are a WB customer) should contain this fix.  If you are using the trial then the fix should be in the WB 7.1 trial when it is released.

Many thanks for reporting this issue.

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Neil, nice work.

Glad it proved relatively easy to reproduce and fix. I am now at another computer, this one running xp, and here I also have threatfire, but as part of the spydoctor package. On xp this has not (yet?) led to crashes.

Should I change my Impulse settings to be able to download the beta WB? I am a registered user, so if it's available I will be able to get it right away. Thank you for resolving the issue so quickly.

Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I downloaded a beta today (7.09), I don't suppose that's the one you meant right? Because that one still has the crashes. I kept threatfire running but suspended it, that did not help. I did find one skin that seems OK so far, it has no native windows 7style; the closest is the Vista style option. I will at some point try without threatfire running, but so far I will wait for your workaround in hopes that will solve my problem.