Object Desktop 2002 is a desktop enhancement suite designs to allow Windows users to completely transform Windows into anything they want. It includes WindowBlinds, DesktopX, ObjectBar, IconPackager, WinStyles, and more. It also includes a 1 year subscription to ObjectDesktop.NET where users can download all the components of Object Desktop, updates, and new features. Our Take: I was lucky to have a “live” demo of the product from Stardock’s CEO, Brad Wardell [interview], a few months back. This set of applications truly transform the Windows GUI to something completely different, which is certainly not just skining, but a complete change of how the UI behaves and interacts with the user.
Stardock Releases Object Desktop 2002 on CD
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
OD is fun. It’s nice to see a product finding good use for CPU.
A very good package to customize your desktop. I would recommend it to fellow Amigans who need to deal with WindowsXP and dislike the standard user interface.
There are loads of themes available. BTW this piece of software started out on OS/2 and that was greatly inspired by many GUI customization software available before that on the Amiga. The package is very user-friendly but on WindowsXP it sometimes causes some additional software errors and still drains alot of performance from your computer (but is insignificant compared to the amount WinXP does itself already).
It would not suprize me if in the future Microsoft would buy this company and claims to be innovation and revolutionizing the software industry yet again. ;( Originally this company was advocating against MS products, but now considering the MS monopoly they are dependent on Microsoft instead. Regardless a very nice addition for people who dislike Microsoft’s standard offerings.
I would recommend it to fellow Amigans who need to deal with WindowsXP and dislike the standard user interface.
I am using Jii Desktop to turn off my icons on desktop (something I don’t like on win32) and many extra tweaks; it’s free and relyable.
Anyway, the best custom desktop comes from learning the win32 Registry. (Something that me, a mere mortal looking to unveil the Microsoft secrets with no documentation, did not completely achieved yet and I am a little prudent since I have a 20 GBytes C: full of software and registry entries; it is also very interesting, the win32 Registry, if you like it as I do).
http://hem.passagen.se/j-zoon/program/windowmanager/ (no update anymore)
or
http://www.32bit.com/software/listings/System/Shell/_300P/27422/ (you will have to find the jii.exe on that apps jungle to get Jii desktop. Sorry if I’m spoiling the sales of Object Desktop2000 it was not my intention.
Still if there is *new* configs on this appp and the price is right, I might get it next month.
One thing I forgot was: does it take many CPU cycles or is it light (on a celeron tualatin)? Because sometimes you are better off with the standard then with a CPU angry custom desktop.
> that me, a mere mortal looking to unveil the Microsoft
> secrets
The closed nature of Windows releases bugs me the most. With AmigaOS I was spoiled with knowing what every file was used for and I also know how to costumize just about everything with the help of very efficient utilities found on Aminet and luckily the complete system is extremely modular.
For instance if you don’t like AmiDock as an application launcher it is very simple to remove it completely from the system and substitute it with a WIndows-like Taskbar option like Amistart:
http://www.gfxbase.com/specials/amistart_eng.shtml
(BTW I prefer AmiDock though and luckily AmigaOS4 will include a greatly enhanced version of it.)
Other things I miss is system monitoring software like SnoopDOS, if anyone knows a good substitution for Windows, please let me know!
Also I love switching between screens with only one click on the upper right gadget of the screen. (Different screens can be in any resolution of color depth independent of eachother) More information with regard to Amiga’s revolutionary screens concept, can be found at the following page (it is far more powerful and user-friendly as compared to having mutiple desktops):
http://hammer.prohosting.com/~amifaq/screens.html
get Process Explorer from http://www.sysinternals.com.
Or just get SnoopDOS for Windows
And whats the problem or big deal about switching ‘window managers’ under windows (seems like you’re going at that). Just replace explorer, with http://www.desktopian.org/bb/ for example.
> get Process Explorer from http://www.sysinternals.com.
> Or just get SnoopDOS for Windows
Thanks, I believe this is what I was looking for.
But where can I download SnoopDOS for Windows?
> And whats the problem or big deal about
> switching ‘window managers’ under windows
In my opinion Object Desktop is the most user-friendly and best supported GUI customization software available for Windows.
Is there any BeOS/ NeXT/ Photon themes? Any of which would do, I want something crisp, nothing fancy. (And I want screenies before I buy it)
> Thanks, I believe this is what I was looking for.
But
> where can I download SnoopDOS for Windows?
Filemon works exactly like the way SnoopDOS operates. I looked many times during the nineties to find a similar utility for Windows without any success. That never made sense to me as the SnoopDOS orginal was among the most useful utilities around. I am glad to have found an equivalent for Windows!
> Is there any BeOS/ NeXT/ Photon themes?
Certainly, here are some WindowBlinds (Included with OD) examples:
BeOS: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?searchtext=BeOS&sort=updateda…
Photon: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?searchtext=QNX&sort=updatedat…
You know how you can have a talented artist make a canvas look beautiful, but an untalented eye will make a God-awful garish mess? That’s what the screenshot Eugenia linked to makes me think of. There’s not really much technically wrong with how it looks…it’s just artistically dead. Compare to OS X, or even the original WinXP, and I think it’s plain to see that, if nothing else, money can buy polish.
http://www.stardock.com/products/desktopx/screens.html
Remember that GUI skinning software is generally composed of poorly programmed, quickly hacked together utilities with horrible UIs and stability issues. You’d think that the people making UI customization software would have the sense to use standard GUI elements so that the themes they distribute work well with their software.
Personally, I had nothing but trouble with StarDock’s SkinStudio XP. The programs were extremely unstable and caused random Explorer crashes. The uninstaller failed to work, tech support didn’t respond to my questions, and the only way to remove the software was by using System Restore. If you have disabled System Restore, I would recommend enabling it before installing any of their products.
YMMV
MBourma – I don’t have an experience with amiga (a capital sinn
does it support a NVidia GF2MX or a TNT2 (the last is good for photon) ?
The classical GUI of win32 works great for me without the desktop icons. I like minimalist GUI’s with cpu/mem info and desktop skinning is, definately, not for me.
The qnx win32 style might be a joice for me too.
Thanks for that desktopian.org/bb link (excelent webdesign) I didn’t knew about blackbox for windows. Is it stable ? (if yes I will install it imediatly).
That depends, Amithlon, a fast directly bootable into AmigaOS emulator for PCs, has good 2D support for nVidia’s GF2MX, but has no 3D drivers. Because nVidia only sees Microsoft machines worthy enough for 3D support (or has binding deals…), I cannot recommend nVidia’s products in any way. At least not if you don’t want to be dependent on Microsoft most of the time and completely for fancy 3D stuff.
Therefor if you want to use mainstream hardware, currently the Voodoo3 has probably the best 2D/3D support for classic Amigas (mainboards from the 80s and early 90s), but you’ll need a Zorro-PCI bridge for using this as well.
For the new PowerPC Amigas (AmigaOS4.x), 2D/3D drivers for ATI Radeon, Matrox G450/G550, Voodoo 3, Permedia 2/3 and Matrox Parhelia graphic cards are under development or already finished. I hope that answers your questions.
Nvidia has very high quality 3D video drivers for Linux/XFree86. Just as good as windows (performance has actually been shown to be better in some benchmarks). Of course, however, its closed source, so there’s no chance of porting them to other platforms.
hope that answers Yes it did. NVidia is a …
If only those new mainborad could run both Mac OSX and Amiga4 …
Cool. Now the Windows world has, what Unix/X11 has for some 8 years: several GUIs to choose from