Using Any Skin In Window Blinds 8 Distorts MS PowerPoint 2007

Mimiest,

I think you'll find that this is not only the case with Powerpoint, but likely your entire Office 2007 installation.  To understand the problem, you need to understand Microsoft's approach to programming which I've summed up below:

1.  Set up an API so that every application can be easy to write while maintaining compatibility.

2.  Do whatever the hell we want with our own programs.

If you're up for some diagnostics while you await an official answer from the devs which probably will be a gentler form of my above comments, I can show you how to gather up a little information.  One of the tools given to us developers included in Visual Studio since the dawn of time has been Spy++.  Thankfully, they actually thought to give out a download link to it albeit a hard to find one:

http://mdb-blog.blogspot.com/2010/11/microsoft-spy-or-spyxx-for-download.html

Grab version 8, obviously.  I have no clue why version 7 is even listed anymore.  It's actually up to version 11 but I imagine this will work just fine for what we're doing.  Just unzip it somewhere and run the exe which will pop-up a Window listing all the Windows, Process, and Threads running on your system.  Open up your powerpoint and then toggle back to Spy++ while your Powerpoint remains in the background so you can see the broken parts. On the toolbar will be a pair of binoculars next to a square window which you'll need to click.  This brings up the Find Window dialog.  You should see an icon with a window and a little bullseye inside of it.  Go ahead and click on it and drag it to the black area next to your toolbar (this should highlight whatever frame you're hovering over at the same time) and then let go of your mouse button.  The Find Window tool will update with the information on whatever part of whatever window you've chosen to investigate.  Go ahead and click Ok once its done which brings up its properties.  Under the Class tab, right down whatever class name shows up and under the Styles tab, write down the first window style in the list.  Do this for the black blob as well.

I think you'll probably find that the result is probably the going to end up the same as most applications with compatibility problems in that they don't follow typical window styling patterns.  In Office 2003 (which I have), I do not get the black blob or menu issues but instead it just ignores styling altogether.  Other programs I use such as WebMatrix 3 and Trillian have much more severe problems.

The only real solution available is to tell WB not to try and skin the program at all and/or play with the compatibility features in WB.  You can find these in the WindowBlinds Config program, clicking on the little gear in the upper right hand corner and going to the Per Application tab.  You'll have to click Add and track down the Powerpoint executable which should be under something like C:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft Office\OfficeXX\POWERPNT.EXE or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OfficeXX\POWERPNT.EXE if you have the 64-bit version.  I imagine all of the Office programs suffer similar problems and any that do you should go ahead and add also.

If you do choose to run Spy++ and gather that information, be sure to reply with it.  Those aren't generally the typical drawing errors I would expect, especially the random black box at the bottom which I would guess is probably a screwed up "Click to add notes" bar.