Not very good at all
from 
Stardock Forums
Stardock Forums
With all due respect i'm really not impressed with most of the stardock products so far. I think they're covering a really nice area of development and on initial installation and use the programs look very nice. But the shear number of bugs, strange error messages, and simple yet highy un-user friendlyness I've come across in the couple of weeks i've been trying them out make them really not nice programs to use. Especially as the main aim of the programs in the first place are to make the windows gui nicer, more user friendly and more customisable.
Since installing the programs I now experience:
Visual C++ error almost ever time I quit Object Dock.
"Layered Hidden Window" cannot be shut down when exiting windows. Have to force shut down.
MCI command something something cannot be shut down when exiting windows. Have to force shut down.
Initial memory use of Objectdock is good, but after the system has been up a while usage can exceed 50+ Mb, which is just way too much for what it is.
Start menu flickers every now and then when the start button is pressed.
Uninstall problems. I've read that people say you need to install stardock central in order to uninstall stardock products, even though they come with there own uninstallers? This to me is just completely silly and is asking for major problems.. Why on Earth should you need to install another new program in order to unistall a previous old one?! Its just mind boggling.
SysMetrix memory usage has been known to go beyond 100Mb which is just crazy, but being as thats not a Stardock product i'll let you off
No search on forum... For the life of me I can't find it, if someone knows where it is please let me know.
Overlay problems caused by Windowblinds. Now I know people say that this is down to Microsoft but that is really besides the point. If you create a program that affects such a major part of windows as the overlay you should either warn the user of this during installion or before, or simply not include a piece of code that causes such a problem. It's like someone trying to sell a air conditioning unit that causes your tv to switch off whenever it turns itself on!?.. Ok, probably not the best example but you get the idea. You can't just say it's the tv's fault even though it may well be. It's just not the way it works.
All these problems turned my freshly installed copy of windows Xp Pro from a nice and smooth running system to a system that was just plain horrible to use. Sometimes, almost everytime I did something with any of the stardock products it brought up a new error message.
Just to explain what system I am running, in the hopes that it might help, here's the spec:
AMD 2800+
512Mb PC2700 Corsair Memory
Zalman 300W Quiet PSU
Asus A7N8X Deluxe Rev 2.0 Motherboard
WD 120Gb 7200rpm SATA HD
LG DVD Burner
Sound Blaster Live! 1024
WinFast TV card
ATI Radeon 9700 AGP Card running at 1024x768 32Bit 85Hz
Windows XP Pro SP2 Clean install with only the lastest drivers installed for main hardware.
Zone Alarm Version 6.1.737.000
PowerDVD
VLC
Zoom player
Windowblinds 5 Demo
Object Dock 1.2
Desktop X 3
SysMetrix with Candy Coated theme
And thats about it. All the software are clean installs too, as in no previous versions have been installed and uninstalled.
I'm sorry to rant on but it's only because I really wish I could use the software and not have all the hassle that comes with it. When it works fine its really nice to use, but unfortunately thats not the case so I shant be using any of the software untill some of these major problem are finally sorted. I think the designers really need to take a step back and stop trying to make the software bigger and better for the time being and go back to looking at the programs core and get that working beautifully first.
Best regards
Since installing the programs I now experience:
Visual C++ error almost ever time I quit Object Dock.
"Layered Hidden Window" cannot be shut down when exiting windows. Have to force shut down.
MCI command something something cannot be shut down when exiting windows. Have to force shut down.
Initial memory use of Objectdock is good, but after the system has been up a while usage can exceed 50+ Mb, which is just way too much for what it is.
Start menu flickers every now and then when the start button is pressed.
Uninstall problems. I've read that people say you need to install stardock central in order to uninstall stardock products, even though they come with there own uninstallers? This to me is just completely silly and is asking for major problems.. Why on Earth should you need to install another new program in order to unistall a previous old one?! Its just mind boggling.
SysMetrix memory usage has been known to go beyond 100Mb which is just crazy, but being as thats not a Stardock product i'll let you off
No search on forum... For the life of me I can't find it, if someone knows where it is please let me know.
Overlay problems caused by Windowblinds. Now I know people say that this is down to Microsoft but that is really besides the point. If you create a program that affects such a major part of windows as the overlay you should either warn the user of this during installion or before, or simply not include a piece of code that causes such a problem. It's like someone trying to sell a air conditioning unit that causes your tv to switch off whenever it turns itself on!?.. Ok, probably not the best example but you get the idea. You can't just say it's the tv's fault even though it may well be. It's just not the way it works.
All these problems turned my freshly installed copy of windows Xp Pro from a nice and smooth running system to a system that was just plain horrible to use. Sometimes, almost everytime I did something with any of the stardock products it brought up a new error message.
Just to explain what system I am running, in the hopes that it might help, here's the spec:
AMD 2800+
512Mb PC2700 Corsair Memory
Zalman 300W Quiet PSU
Asus A7N8X Deluxe Rev 2.0 Motherboard
WD 120Gb 7200rpm SATA HD
LG DVD Burner
Sound Blaster Live! 1024
WinFast TV card
ATI Radeon 9700 AGP Card running at 1024x768 32Bit 85Hz
Windows XP Pro SP2 Clean install with only the lastest drivers installed for main hardware.
Zone Alarm Version 6.1.737.000
PowerDVD
VLC
Zoom player
Windowblinds 5 Demo
Object Dock 1.2
Desktop X 3
SysMetrix with Candy Coated theme
And thats about it. All the software are clean installs too, as in no previous versions have been installed and uninstalled.
I'm sorry to rant on but it's only because I really wish I could use the software and not have all the hassle that comes with it. When it works fine its really nice to use, but unfortunately thats not the case so I shant be using any of the software untill some of these major problem are finally sorted. I think the designers really need to take a step back and stop trying to make the software bigger and better for the time being and go back to looking at the programs core and get that working beautifully first.
Best regards
WinCustomize Forums
. Well, apart from when windows starts to hit the page file prematurely due to memory usage that is.
) but at least it looks good, right? 
