Stardock Forums
I purchased Windowblinds, Modernmix, and Start8 and everything is working good except when I open an explorer window the background is all black and icons inside the window are all distorted and blurry. Here is a screenshot:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/53957811@N08/13589391014
Is there any way I can fix this?
No one can see your screenshot unless they are a member of Flickr.
I don't have to sign in to see it? I can see it in both Firefox and IE without needing to sign in. It's a publicly available picture.
Let me try another link to it, maybe this one will help:
Flickr give you like a dozen different ways to share a photo. ><
try messing with the "explorer background" tab in windowblinds, might work.
I clicked on the link in the OP and had no problem seeing it. The background is indeed black and the text is blurry. I'd go with gmc2's recommendation.
Hmmmm, weird, yesterday it wanted me to create an account when I clicked the link in the OP. Oh well, no biggie.
As far as the issue, it has to be a setting change in WB that did it. Does it do it in all WB skins that you apply, or just a specific skin?
I have been messing around with the background settings in Windowblinds. Somehow I got rid of the blurry text, which is an improvement. When my explorer windows are maximized they look fine, but if I try to resize them, the background goes completely transparent and I can see my desktop or any other windows directly behind it. This is a little annoying.
This happens to all skins I have applied so far. Has this happened to anyone else? I appreciate the help!
*EDIT: I found the problem. The setting for "Active Window Opacity" was set to 0. Which seems like an odd default setting, but whatever. It seems to be working all right now. Thank you everyone, for your help!
Joshua - I'd be interested to know if by any chance you installed SkinStudio? I'd been using WindowBlinds successfully for about a week (trial version) then someone suggested I should also try SkinStudio. Since I tried SkinStudio I've been having exactly the same problem as you (even after uninstalling SkinStudio). One or two skins seem to look quite normal - but the majority of them are now affected exactly the same as yours.
I'm just about to try gmc2's suggestion (from Reply #3) and see if it helps.
[Edit...] FWIW I did try gmc2's suggestion and at least in my case, it worked. I entered "Background->Explorer Backgrounds", I then selected "None" and that fixed the problem.
I'm having the same problem on a Win 8.1 system. If my explorer window is maximized everything is fine. But if I window explorer, the the pane where all the files are listed is black and very blurry... I can tell that it has transparency on it.
joshuabaue, you mentioned that you set the active window transparency value... where and how do you set that? I'm in Window Blinds and can't find anywhere to set that.
Windowblinds configuration window/ backgrounds/ explorer backgrounds ... <--is right next to the word wallpaper, mid left, below the windowblind preview image
Thanks HG_Eliminator and joshuabauer! That's been driving me 
for a while now. Apparently, the Windowblinds 8 update changed the default setting that set explorer background transparency. All back to normal now. 
It's things like this - an issue that hasn't been fixed - is why normal people abandon software. Not everyone will come to a forum or ask for support. It's so much easier to just uninstall and move on. So how long has this problem been identified without being fixed by Stardock? I suppose that is what is to be expected from a game studio that was once a respected software house. /rant
I think if you read all the posts thoroughly, you will see that the problems were resolved already. "Once a respected software house?" They are still and probably always will be a respected "software house". Granted, some of their products, especially SkinStudio, need a bit of improvement work, but then again what software companies products don't?
Solved in the forums, sure. But as I said, a casual user is *not* going to come here, but conclude that most of the skins are incompatible with their system.
Stardock appears to have become focused almost entirely on games, with the utility and customization software given the 'legacy' treatment. I suspect that the gaming end brings in many multiples what the software end does, so I can't blame them... It's just from my selfish p.o.v, I value software that has an aggressive development cycle, like Object Desktop had in the old, pre-Impulse days.
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