Any way to avoid WB updates from reinstalling Styles that I've deleted?

Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having issues. That never happened to me. How do you delete it? I did it by simply right click on WindowBlinds Style list and select delete from the menu.

Note : Not too sure about the Installer reinstalling those default styles from Stardock. That might be true. But not on those that you downloaded yourself.

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant.

This has been an issue for years. I made a recommendation a long time ago that they include an option during install to defer installing the skins that come with WB, but I guess it was not taken seriously. I hate doing WB updates for this reason, because afterwards I have to delete every skin that comes with WB, on 3 different OS's, and on 4-5 different computers, so it becomes a real pain.

Sure you can right click on the skin and delete it in WB, but that wastes a lot of time, and doing so still leaves the skins folder in the WB directory if the skin has a font included with it. You have to reboot and manually go in and delete the folders. I reported this a long time ago too, but again, no one took it seriously.

Someone please start taking things seriously. Thank you.

Oh, and there are even some skin folders in the WB directory that do not even show up in WB itself, like ConveX, it is there and has only a couple of files in it. So I have to manually go in and delete them also.

Hello,

I have forwarded your problem to Stardock Support team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience.

Basj

Stardock Community Assistant.

Ahhh - the Rembrandt of Windowblinds styles! I really do like your work, Lightstar, and have many of your styles installed. 

I just this morning thought of a possible way to work around the constant re-installation of Styles. I went to my Windowblinds directory (C:\users\public\documents\Stardock\Windowblinds) and made a Zip file of the contents (just the folders, actually, because I was afraid that I might wind up deleting some other files that were part of an update, and be in an endless update loop). I moved that Zip file to another disk for safekeeping.

My plan is to install an update to Windowblinds, then delete all the folders from the C:\users\public\documents\Stardock\Windowblinds directory and replace them all with the contents of my backup Zip file.

? Sounds good to me. I'll let you know if it works.

Quoting BumpkinboyBob, reply 4

Ahhh - the Rembrandt of Windowblinds styles! I really do like your work, Lightstar, and have many of your styles installed. 

I just this morning thought of a possible way to work around the constant re-installation of Styles. I went to my Windowblinds directory (C:\users\public\documents\Stardock\Windowblinds) and made a Zip file of the contents (just the folders, actually, because I was afraid that I might wind up deleting some other files that were part of an update, and be in an endless update loop). I moved that Zip file to another disk for safekeeping.

My plan is to install an update to Windowblinds, then delete all the folders from the C:\users\public\documents\Stardock\Windowblinds directory and replace them all with the contents of my backup Zip file.

? Sounds good to me. I'll let you know if it works.

 

End of BumpkinboyBob's quote

Thanks for the nice comments, but I would not put all files into the .zip as some of files that come with the new update may be required. Only put actual skins in the ,zip file.  

Yeah, I always worry about messing my system up. BUT ... I just recently found a DYNAMITE freeware program that completely protects me from screwups. Rollback RX. I love this thing.

After an initial 'snapshot' of your total C drive (takes about 90 seconds), you can take other snapshots at will. And it truly takes only 10-12 seconds, and the files are smallish (1GB maybe). To restore, just open the little Rollback RX program (in Windows), choose which snapshot you'd like to revert to, and it forces a reboot. The reboot takes a whopping 20 seconds longer than a normal boot, and voila! A perfect restore.

The only issue I see is that Rollback stores its snapshots on the C drive and that can't be changed. So just in case of a total disk failure, I keep a few Macrium Reflect images on a removable external drive. That's also a totally free program.

Before I install a program I take a snapshot. Just today, I did that, installed a freeware PDF reader that messed up my system, and Rollback RX restored perfectly to just before I did that install. And I'll take a snapshot before I update Windowblinds again - I didn't see anything that looked 'damaging' in the backup Zip file I made, but ... what do I know?  

Seems like the long way to go about deleting a dozen skins or a dozen directories.

It is Dave, definitely.

I don't mind the skins that come with WB. The one thing I hate is I have to open them in SKS and remove the User Pictures.

As for saving them I create a folder on my external hard drive and put a date on it and copy all the WB folders to it.

Haha! Well you're both right - it is a somewhat tedious process to get the correct skins. My problem is that I can't remember what skins come with WB, so I have to scroll through them all, apply the suspicious ones, and then decide if that a tosser or not. I also think my problems were aggravated by a string of WB updates in the past month or so. I believe they've fixed that problem. 

But I will take your suggestion to heart. At the moment, I have 61 skins only 2 of which are Stardock's. So I'll write these 2 down, and the next time I do an update -- I'll delete all the Stardock skins except for those two. 

Here ya go:

Acrylic 7/Corporate/Diamond/Echo/Eva/Ice/Lantana/Modern/Precision/The Captain/Win8/Win8 Metro

Wow! Thank you DaveRI.

I'm originally from Providence - if that's what the "RI" stands for.  What I wouldn't give for some really good Italian food.

I just checked here on my laptop I have 704 skins installed. I had no idea I had that many skins on here.

704 skins!! Oy veh - you must have a massive boot drive. I only have 61 skins, and my WB folder has 826 MB in it. 

192 skins installed here, out of the 330 I've designed....

Damn! I have nowhere near that many. I think I have little more than a dozen installed but...a whole lot of WB's just sittin' in a folder on an external drive. A grand total of 341.5 mb.

The laptop has a 750 gb hard drive and the skins are about 8.50 gb. I've been here since 2002 so you accumulate a lot of skins. Not saying that this laptop is old. I bought it when Win 8 came out. Out of all the laptops I've owned this is the best one I ever had. I recently started looking for another so if this one dies I'll have a backup.

If you ever go to DeviantArt there are a lot of WB skins that aren't on here. 

Ah, see, by my standards you have a huge disk. My boot drive (SSD) is only 120GB, and everything I own can fit on it. 

I never use DeviantArt - I'll head over there right now and check it out. My 'skimpy' skin holdings, however, have more to do with my likes/dislikes than anything (I can only tolerate simple and rather plain), and many of the folks who make up these beautiful skins like it fancy. 

I'll let you know if I download 600 or so skins from DeviantArt.

AlMonty - oh yeah, your DeviantArt recommendation was a winner! Those are exactly the types of skins I really like. I downloaded a load of them. Would have grabbed more, but a lot of them had the buttons on the left (Mac) and I'm not crazy about that. Thanks again.