Windowblinds 8 and Mycolors skins

Sad to say that you have to ditch Mycolors stuff running Windowblinds 8 in tandem due to the former one is more in impasse considering it has been ceased developed for the newest version of its apps,as in this case;;Windwoblinds 8. Nevertheless,you would rename the .mycolors/.theme to .zip to extract the Wb skin you intended to load.

Sorry I don't really understand. When you download the theme from your Stardock account it always installs MyColors.

Not so,I believe Statdock has given .theme format awhile on the alternaive DL link.  If not,then you wpould simply went to MyColors installed forlder to retrieve theme files. Just remenbered,repack the WB folder as .zip/.wb for loading in Windowblinds main proggy.

I can see a Zip download for some of my skins (ankh for instance) but it looks like Encounter and a couple others are still tied exclusively to MyColors.

You can use 7zip to unpack the MyColors installer, to get the MyColors theme,  then either use Theme Manager to apply it, or rename to zip and extract it and put the IP and WB folders in their proper directories.

I for one will forewarn you, installing MyColors on Windows7 causes all kinds of problems. It is not compatible with the current version of WindowBlinds.

Wish I had read that yesterday. I decided to download and install a bunch of stuff before I lost internet (unemployed, so...) and the combo of Win7/MyColors/WB just didn't work out.

ThemeManager also has a strange issue in that some of the thumbnails from WB8 skins are missing buttons (min/max/close). Not sure if that's normal.

Anyhind, now I gotta do some zipping, fixing, uninstalling and reinstalling (for good measure).

Marc

I went looking for the MyColors files and couldn't find them anywhere at first. Checked the wblinds themes dir, appdata areas, common files, mycolors program directory (which has an empty Themes folder), but just couldn't find anything. Then I found everything sitting in ThemeManager's data directory. Given that ThemeManager was installed after MyColors I don't know if the former snatched the files from MyColor's location or if that's a default location.

The .mycolors files are of course zip files so that's not a problem. What to do with the contents is simple enough but where does one put gadgets normally? I don't use Win7 much (haven't yet warmed up to it though I've had it installed a couple of years).

[Edit: Duh, I guess they go where I originally found them under Program Files (x86). Just where ThemeManager's docs say.]  

Also, does ThemeManager even work properly in Win7? The default suite, Aero Midnight, wouldn't even apply properly. Maybe once I clean up everything and try with a custom made suite.

Been using Stardock products for ages (WebBlinds days) but haven't done any new installs 'til recently. Given that I never used the MyColors stuff (just sitting there in my account) I didn't realize how old they were.  Time marches on...

Normally,all of components of Mycolors all zipped in single installment (.exe/.mycolors),after you extracted it,you got everything inside. But,it would has exception that .gadegt(s) being separately put another DL links or not included. Your bets bet would be download the theme from alternative links of which Stardock has given.

According official site,"the newest version of ThemeManager" does supports WIN7,yet,should something kept fussed up even you have done the cleanse and custom theme,you need submit a support ticket.

Another side note,as Windowblinds(8) always outpaced the development of ThemeManager,you have to take discreet step/knowledge that incompatible issues do occur.

Heh, today I discovered that all of the MyColors themes were actually sitting inside WB's program directory instead of the normal location.

So far the manual cleanup went okay. A few gotchas. In WB8 previews of the installed skins show up fine in the main windows but the thumbnails on the left (list of skins) are no good. Looks like good old television when trying to reach a faraway station.

ThemeManager, at the moment, partially works. If you apply a suite it changes most items except for the blinds. I don't think it interacts well with WB8. It also doesn't recognize a LogonStudio installation.

LogonStudio was kind of odd in that the one downloaded from my store account didn't want to work properly (no, it wasn't the legacy one). Kept complaining that imageres.dll already exists.  Figured it was a need-to-run-as-admin thing. But the public version obtained via email link worked fine, looked slightly different, and installed to the "new" location under ..\Stardock\ as opposed to ..\Stardock\Object Desktop\   

That one is version 1.7.0.12

Back to MyColors. Backed up the contents of ThemeManager's data dir plus the gadgets, uninstalled MyColors, fixed things up, reinstalled everything. The data was put back as was so ThemeManager would still see the MyColors stuff as before. Applying one works normally, including gadgets. With the exception of the aforementioned WB8 thing but then the skins can be applied separately.

All this messing around was done after I switched from WB7 to WB8. No telling if things would've worked differently. 

marcdw, I am curious - Which version of Windows are you running?

OK, Last night I did this. I installed MyColors, allowed it to install all my myColors themes. Do not apply any. If you do, you may have to reinstall WindowBlinds afterward. Actually, you'll end up reinstalling WindowBlinds anyway. But trust me, don't run a MyColors theme from MyColors.

Then I went into the theme manager directory(C:\Users\Public\Documents\Stardock\ThemeManager), and grabbed all the xxxxxx.mycolors files.

I copied them into another folder. Extracted them with 7zip.

This results in a folder containing the icons, windowblind, and other files.

Inside the windowblind folder,you'll have a folder named after the WB. In it you have encoded graphics. Here's the tricky part.

Go back to the directory (C:\Users\Public\Documents\Stardock\ThemeManager), and copy the xxx.bin files for each WB into the respective folder for their WB where you extracted them earlier. zip them, and change the extension to .wba. Then double click to install into WindowBlinds.

Example, put the Magic bin file into the Magic WB folder that has encoded gfx, zip it, change extension to .wba, double click it.     Voila, you have your unencoded WB installed! 

The .bin file is what unencodes them so you can install and use via windowblinds.

Be sure to place the bin file it the folder that is labeled with the same name as the WB. Not into the folder labeled windowblinds, in your extracted folders.

I hope this is clear, it reads a bit confused, but it worked for me.

I assume that my posting this is ok, since my assumption is that you'd have to own the content in order to have access to the .bin files.

If I assume incorrectly, please delete this moderators, and know I was only trying to help.

Redneck I'm glad you got your themes back.      

I've always dreaded the day I grow up and get a machine to run Win7, 'cause you know I'm gonna try to get those theme pieces installed. 

Windows 7 Pro, x64.

Y'know, I tried Redneck's tips but it turned out to be no different than when I had manually copied the themes originally without the bin files.

Mind you, the MyColors themes work fine with WB8 (other than the pixelated thumbnails in the skin list) it's just that ThemeManager doesn't work right with WB8. As a test I decided to create a new suite with various elements. An indicator of ThemeManager's age is that it allows for specifying preview files for XP and Vista only, no Win7. Once the suite was created I applied it. What happens here and before is that you see WB8 applying a skin (indicated by the theme's "splash") but it's the currently applied skin. However, if you then go to the My Desktop tab to see what elements are being used it shows only IconPackager and Wallpaper. At this point it doesn't recognize that a skin is in use. Once you manually load a skin it'll show up in My Desktop.

Also, given that fact that I never (well, rarely) install anything into Program Files if I can help it (an historical thing) may or may not be the reason ThemeManager thinks I don't have LogonStudio installed. Hard to say as I don't know if it checks the registry or looks to old default locations.

I think now I'll go on over to the XP machine and try out this MyColors stuff. Just because. See if I break anything.  

Did you add the bin file to the WB folder, zip it, then rename it to xxxx.wba?

It worked fine here.