***Reserved***

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. But, I can not reproduce your issue on my system.

Here is what I get on my system

Unless you unselect the titlebar from skinning.

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

Maybe, you should try cleanboot steps as mentioned here : https://forums.stardock.com/500728/curtains-support-faq#CurtainsServiceStart and see if there is conflict.

BTW, any special reason you're not updating your Windows 10 to the latest official version V20H2?

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Quoting consumer019,

reply 7

I'm not sure if you worry about issues in Developer Preview releases of Windows 10. I'm currently on OS Build 21327.1000, using Curtains v1.17, and I'm seeing some funky distortions that seem to pop up intermittently when a window receives focus.

 

If I have an instance of File Explorer open, for example, and an instance of the Curtains app, I can get this to happen by clicking between Explorer, the Windows Desktop, and Curtains. It usually takes multiple series of clicks for it to happen.

 

I can also get it to happen reliably 100% of the time by simply opening File Explorer without an existing instance. The distortion goes away as soon as I give another window focus.

 

Here's what this particular Curtains style looks like clean:



...and here it is again when the distortion occurs:



Here's one of Stardock's styles clean:



...and then again, distorted:

We are aware, this is an os level bug.

If you are able to file a ms feedback report it would help as Microsoft pay more attention to more reports or upvotes of existing ones.

Yes there is a special reason why my Windows is not updated to the latest version. They wont fricken update it! lol

I have been reading this message in the Windows Update page of Settings since May last year: "Feature update to Windows 10, version 2004. The Windows 10 May 2020 Update is on its way. Once it’s ready for your device, you’ll see the update available on this page.". When I research it I just find tips that say to click the button to check for updates and it should start the update to the new version. That does not happen, I just get a message saying there are no updates available or, like just now, it downloads and installs updates related to my version. Just now it downloaded and installed 2 .NET security updates and is waiting for me to finish this and reboot my machine! I have reported the issue via the feedback hub back in October or September but there is no response from Microsoft.

I tried a manual update of the system using a tool you can download from Microsoft but it just refused to boot so I had to revert back. Maybe a hardware incompatibility issue they have to sort out before they can roll it out to my machine? My machine is pretty standard though, Intel based with an i7 8086 CPU, an already dated gaming rig with an NVidia RTX 2080 Super and a Soundblaster Z sound card added. No other special hardware added so I do not see what the problem would be.

I don't know how it's fixed but it is working again. It certainly was not the clean boot and the batch file that fixed it.

Ok, here is what happened:

I followed the steps for a clean boot, I.E. created a new user account as admin, disabled all non-Microsoft services and startup applications. Rebooted and logged in to the new account.

Next I opened a command prompt window in administrator mode and ran CurtainsStart.bat that I downloaded in the instructions page you linked. I got the following error:

System error 1058 has occurred.

The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.

Curtains enabled and reset to defaults
Press any key to continue . . .

So I logged in to my main user account and found it all messed up! I tried the batch file again there anyway and got the same error.
I ran Curtains from the start menu instead and selected a style. Same problem I encountered, title bars were not being skinned.

Next I decided to just fix the messed up user account. Went in and selected only essential services to start up (including all the Stardock ones of course!) and left out ones I did not recognise or "anti-cheat" services. I rebooted and logged in to my main user account again and behold, Curtains was working properly!

I still have to fix a few things that were screwed up by the clean boot instructions but for now Curtains is working. I am guessing some incompatibility with some service or something in the startup list that is currently disabled.

As for Windows update, as I mentioned I did try a manual update to 2004 using a tool downloaded from Microsoft but it broke Windows so it would not start so I had to undo the update.

It sounds like Curtains isn't starting up at all.

In taskmanager do you see CurtainsSrv64.exe and Curtains64.exe?

Why I get "Problem Code 123" when I try to update Curtain in Objects Desktop Manager?.For Tiles too!!

Update:

After making my last post I uninstalled Curtains intending to re-install it the next day which I did not get round to!
Yesterday I decided to try and sort out the issues with my installation of Windows that prevented some updates and got that all fixed so today I updated to Windows Insider build 21H1 which went without hitch (unlike my attempt to force Windows to update to version 2004!). After I finished doing that I re-installed Curtains and it appears to be working properly now.

So now I have an up-to-date preview version of Windows and Curtains working again. YAY!

Windows 10 (*64) Home OS build19042.844.

Tiles 2.0

Curtains 1.17

ODM 4.02 (4.2.7454.15088)

Nope, spoke too soon... again!   
Back to Curtains not skinning the title bars!

So, we know it's not the version of Windows now as I am on 21H1 build 19043.867 when I was on version 1903 before. It works after re-installing but not after a shutdown from when it was working.

Right now I see Stardock Curtains and Stardock Curtains Service listed in the Task Manager and it is skinning the task bar and Start button like it should and this right after booting up my PC for the first time today.

Not working !