Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 2nd Oct 2007 19:21 UTC, submitted by draginol
Developer Stardock has released WindowBlinds 6 today. It is a utility that allows users to customize the look and feel of Windows by applying "skins" to change the user interface of the OS. WindowBlinds 6 can make Windows XP look virtually identical to Windows Vista (including blurred glass). Thanks to hardware acceleration, a typical XP system dressed to look like Vista will perform faster than Vista still. WindowBlinds 6 also adds full skinning support to Windows Vista, making it the first and only program to support full Windows Vista customization. CNet takes a quick look at this new release.
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Member since:2006-04-04
so when you upgrade your hardware and find alternative programs to the ones that come with the OS, it works acceptably? Yup, my cheap shot was way off line.
The funny thing is, my post was just a quick joke; your post does more to paint vista in a bad light whilst defending it than my little poke did, by far.
Member since:
2005-10-05
You know, if you'd actually bother to try a patched Vista with decent, recent drivers, you'd find that your cheap shot at Vista is pretty off-base.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver...
A lot of the complaints I see about Vista are pretty dated, launch-era problems, especially the idea that OpenGL apps are completely b0rked. The fact of the matter is that Microsoft never made much of an effort to support OpenGL with the drivers shipped with Windows, that has always been the responsibility of the hardware manufacturers providing the drivers so you can get an OpenGL ICD that works.
For me, I notice a 2-5% performance difference between XP and Vista usually in my games, but the underpinnings of the new platform are good enough that I don't care much, and it will become even less of an issue after I upgrade my CPU from the 3000+ A64 I have right now, the lowest-rated component of my system according to Vista.
P.S. - I find using VLC and WinAMP help a lot with avoiding the cpu usage incurred from WMP11 in Vista, which seems to be caused by the protected media path.