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WinCustomize
WinCustomize is a website that provides content for users to customize Microsoft Windows. The site hosts thousands of skins, themes, icons, wallpapers, and other graphical content to modify the Windows graphical user interface. There is some premium or paid content, however, the vast majority of the content is free for users to download. Site history WinCustomize was launched in March 2001 by Brad Wardell and Pat Ford, both of whom work at Stardock. After the dot-com recession had taken down many popular skin sites, WinCustomize quickly grew in popularity due to a combination of wide variety of content, uptime reliability, and being the preferred content destination by Stardock customers. The site has grown at a far greater pace than its founders had anticipated. It has managed to avoid having to put many limitations on users or having to resort to pop-up advertising because of its corporate patron Stardock subsidizing its costs. This growth has prompted several site red ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stardock
Stardock Corporation is an American software development Company (law), company founded in 1991 and incorporation (business), incorporated in 1993 as Stardock Systems. Stardock initially developed for the OS/2 platform, but was forced to switch to Microsoft Windows due to the collapse of the OS/2 software market between 1997 and 1998. The company is best known for computer programs that allow a user to modify or extend a graphical user interface as well as personal computer games, particularly Strategy video game, strategy games such as the ''Galactic Civilizations'' series, ''Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion'', ''Elemental: Fallen Enchantress'', and ''Ashes of the Singularity''. Stardock created and maintains WinCustomize, a graphical user interface customization community, and developed the Impulse (content delivery), Impulse content delivery system before its sale to GameStop. Many of the Skin (computing), skins and Theme (computer), themes featured on its site are for softwar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DesktopX
DesktopX was a shareware desktop enhancement program that allowed users to build their own custom desktops. Amongst its features was a complete widget engine for Microsoft Windows, Windows as well as a desktop object system. User creations could be exported as .desktop files or as widgets. The program was distributed with Object Desktop as well as stand-alone. DesktopX was released by Alberto Riccio in 1999 as VDE (Verona Desktop Enhancer), and bought in 2000 by Stardock. Mini-applications created with it were called "object packs" but later rebranded as "widgets" to standardize the term. Most users used DesktopX to build alternative desktop environments. The mini-application creation ability was there from the start but did not gain widespread use until the release of ''DesktopX 2'' in 2003. Current versions run on Windows 2000 and above. DesktopX is no longer for sale by its author and is not actively supported. Overview DesktopX supports the creation of three different typ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BootSkin
BootSkin is a computer program for Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista that allows users to change the screen displayed while the operating system is booting. It is made by Stardock, and distributed for free under the WinCustomize brand. BootSkin uses a boot-time device driver (vidstub.sys) to access the display directly using VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE), unlike other bootscreen changers which alter the boot screen image inside the kernel (operating system), kernel. This has the advantage of not modifying system files, and makes higher-display resolution, resolution boot screens possible; standard boot screens are limited to 640x480 with 16 colors. Some graphics cards and chipsets do not support VBE well, preventing their use with BootSkin. Due to severe restrictions on color depth, many images are not suitable for use as boot skins. Successful skins tend to take advantage of the limitations through the use of a limited Palette (computing), palette and Dither#Digi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brad Wardell
Bradley R. Wardell (born June 24, 1971) is an American businessman, programmer, author and AI engineer. He is the founder, president, and CEO of Stardock, a software development and computer games company. Education Wardell graduated from Western Michigan University in 1994 with a degree in Electronic Engineering, specializing in Computer Engineering. Career Wardell was involved in the design and implementation of '' Galactic Civilizations'' for OS/2, one of the platform's few games. He led development of ''OS/2 Essentials'', followed by ''Object Desktop'', a package of utilities and desktop enhancements. When the OS/2 market collapsed, he shifted Stardock to Windows, heading development of PC game ''Entrepreneur'', while coordinating the creation of '' WindowBlinds'' and other ''Object Desktop'' components. Wardell was an early pioneer of digital distribution of games and software, despite the potential for software piracy. Wardell was an early adopter of digital distribut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LogonStudio
Object Desktop (OD; previously the Object Desktop Network or ODNT) is an online software subscription service created by Stardock for OS/2 and relaunched for Microsoft Windows, Windows in 1997. Object Desktop includes most graphical user interface customization and productivity products offered by Stardock, including ''WindowBlinds'', ''Fences (software), Fences'', ''DesktopX'', ''Tweak7'', ''IconPackager'' and ''ObjectBar''. History OS/2 (1993 to 2001) Object Desktop — initially entitled ''The Workplace Toolset/2'' — was developed over three years by Brad Wardell and Kurt Westerfeld subsequent to Stardock's ''OS/2 Essentials'', a pre-registered set of OS/2 shareware. Object Desktop 1.0 was followed by 1.5 and Professional' versions following in short order. By 1997 the OS/2 independent software vendor, ISV market was flagging, and many customers were switching to Windows NT 4. 1997 OS/2 revenues were 33% of those in 1996, and they fell to 25% of 1996 levels in 1998. This le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IconPackager
Object Desktop (OD; previously the Object Desktop Network or ODNT) is an online software subscription service created by Stardock for OS/2 and relaunched for Windows in 1997. Object Desktop includes most graphical user interface customization and productivity products offered by Stardock, including '' WindowBlinds'', '' Fences'', ''DesktopX'', '' Tweak7'', ''IconPackager'' and ''ObjectBar''. History OS/2 (1993 to 2001) Object Desktop — initially entitled ''The Workplace Toolset/2'' — was developed over three years by Brad Wardell and Kurt Westerfeld subsequent to Stardock's ''OS/2 Essentials'', a pre-registered set of OS/2 shareware. Object Desktop 1.0 was followed by 1.5 and Professional' versions following in short order. By 1997 the OS/2 ISV market was flagging, and many customers were switching to Windows NT 4. 1997 OS/2 revenues were 33% of those in 1996, and they fell to 25% of 1996 levels in 1998. This led to their decision to switch to Windows in mid-1997. Neverthel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WindowBlinds
WindowBlinds is a computer program that allows users to skin the Windows graphical user interface. It has been developed by Stardock since 1998, and is the most popular component of their flagship software suite, Object Desktop. It is also available separately, and as an ActiveX/COM component called DirectSkin. Introduced in its sixth version, it supports alpha blending effects similar to the compositing of Windows Vista, but on Windows XP. WindowBlinds has been downloaded over 10 million times and was voted "Best Vertical Market Program or Utility" in the 2006 Shareware Industry Awards Foundation People's Choice Awards. As of November 2009 there were 4448 WindowBlinds skins available at WinCustomize, with an average of nine being added per week. Skin formats WindowBlinds skins come in two formats: "Basic" (or "UIS1+") and "Advanced" (or "UIS2"). Basic (UIS1+) Despite its name, the "Basic" skin format can be used to create fully featured skins, and it is still used today. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users and Windows Me for home users. Development of Windows XP began in the late 1990s under the codename "Windows Neptune, Neptune", built on the Architecture of Windows NT#Kernel, Windows NT kernel and explicitly intended for mainstream consumer use. An updated version of Windows 2000 was also initially planned for the business market. However, in January 2000, both projects were scrapped in favor of a single OS codenamed "Whistler", which would serve as a single platform for both consumer and business markets. As a result, Windows XP is the first consumer edition of Windows not based on the Windows 95 kernel or MS-DOS. Upon its release, Windows XP received critical acclaim, noting increased performance and stability (especially compared to Wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft Windows. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on November 8, 2006, and over the following two months, it was released in stages to business customers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and retail channels. On January 30, 2007, it was released internationally and was made available for purchase and download from the Windows Marketplace; it is the first release of Windows to be made available through a digital distribution platform. Development of Windows Vista began in 2001 under the codename "Longhorn"; originally envisioned as a minor successor to Windows XP, it feature creep, gradually included numerous new features from the then-next major release of Windows codenamed "Blackc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
