Freeware from Stardock Systems downloads
Theme Manager 2.2
Control the OVER ALL look of your Windows computer with Theme Manager. Manage all your skins, themes, wallpapers, icons, etc. from a single interface. You can even mix and match them together to create full blown suites! Theme Manager is a front end that seamlessly works with your other desktop enhancements to apply skins, themes, icon packages, and suites all from the same user interface. Once you have your desktop just the way you want, you can take a snapshot of your desktop that is saved as a .suite file. Theme Manager supports: - Wallpapers - Visual Styles (WindowBlinds & MSStyles*) - MP3 Players (Winamp, Windows Media Player, Cool Player) - Desktop Themes (Microsoft .theme, DesktopX, Hoverdesk, NextStart, ObjectBar) - Mouse cursors (both Windows and CursorXP) - Logon Screens (LogonXP format) - Boot Screens (BootSkin format) - Icons (both MS Themes and IconPackager themes) - Widgets (SysMetrix, DesktopX Widgets) - Instant Messenging Skinning (Trillian, ICQ Plus) - Launchers (ObjectDock, WorkShelf) - and more!
Blog Navigator 1.2
Blog Navigator is a program designed to make it easy for users who enjoy reading blogs (short for `web logs`) to read and organize them. Blog Navigator works by reading RSS feeds and displaying them in a clean, easy to understand way. It includes a host of different news and blog sites for users to read through. Blog Navigator is arguably the most advanced program of its kind and it`s free. For example, Blog Navigator has the ability to pre-load all the articles on a given blog site to speed up reading. It also has a host of off-line reading features in which a blog site can be exported into a magazine-like format. Notable features of Blog Navigator include: - It`s free! (as in really free, no `ads`, no spyware, no nonsense) - Can pre-load an entire blog site to make reading much faster - Included Tabbed browser makes it easy to switch between multiple blog sites - Blog sites can be exported to a magazine-like format for off-line reading - Built in tools for searching the entire blogsphere - Different blog sites can be grouped together to create virtual web magazines - Interesting articles can be dragged and dropped into a basket for safe keeping - Auto-RSS detection. Websites that have RSS feeds on them can be automatically detected in many cases - Can import OPML and other common files (makes it easy to share settings between various RSS readers) Just a few of the version 1.2 adds/changes/fixes: - Added support blog editing in offline mode with postponed article sending. - Added "Print", "Print preview"" and "Page setup" to "File" menu. - Added support for enclosures (podcasting). Users can now download any files attached to their RSS feeds. - Menus for selection of style of article or newspaper/group displaying now indicates what style is selected. - Added ability to mark a Favorite as important (flag it). - Added an option to create favorites folders just like any other BN folders. - Save as added to Article editor.
CursorXP 1.31
Tired of the plain white arrow that is your cursor? Want to add some jazz and pizzazz to your desktop? Stardock`s CursorXP is a program that lets you use and create incredibly cool looking Windows mouse cursors. It does this by taking advantage of the new visual effects features of Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Add shadows, trails, explosions and other animations to your cursors, or choose something a little more sedate ? just easier to see. Give your eyes a rest and entertain your brain while working and playing. CursorXP users can create and use cursors that look and feel far superior to anything you`ve ever seen before! Best of all, it`s really easy to create your own super-charged cursors! It integrates into the standard Mouse interface of Windows and is easy to turn on and off as you need. Version 1.31 works under non-admin accounts on Windows 2000 and XP, has high dpi support and better, faster shadows, and supports hyperthreaded machines. Version 1.31 adds support for DEP on AMD64 processors running 32-bit Windows XP SP2. There are thousands more cursors for you to try at sites like www.wincustomize.com, enough to suit any taste. Can?t find one you like? Create your own! Give it a try today!
IconDeveloper 1.2
IconDeveloper is a program that makes it a snap to create your own icons for Windows. Most icon editors come with their own graphics editor. IconDeveloper doesn`t. Instead, it assumes that most people who want to create icons are either going to create them using an existing graphics package like Photoshop, MS Paint, CorelDraw, or they take existing images (.BMP, .PNG, .JPG, etc.) and turn those into icons. So instead of putting effort into a bitmap editor, IconDeveloper focuses itself on making it really, really easy to turn existing images into Windows icons and allowing for common modification of those icons (resizing, color changing, etc.). The result is a program that makes icons extremely fast, extremely well and extremely easily. The free version allows for the creation of standard Windows icons, Windows XP icons, and shell integration. An enhanced version is also available for $19.95, which adds additional features such as creating and editing any sized icons at any resolution up to 256x256, changing the hue/gamma/color of the icons, batch convert and batch colorize entire folders of icons. The enhanced version is part of Object Desktop, Stardock`s premiere suite of desktop enhancement programs that let you customize Windows to look, feel and function how you want it to. Object Desktop is only $49.95 and includes IconDeveloper, WindowBlinds, DesktopX, IconPackager, ObjectBar, WindowFX, SkinStudio and much more! For more information visit: http://www.stardock.com/products/icondeveloper/.
LogonStudio 1.0
Change your start-up screen! Stardock`s LogonStudio is a program that allows Windows XP users to edit, change, and apply new logon screens. It comes with several logon screens to choose from along with thousands available on-line from websites such as WinCustomize.com. This fantastic program comes built with a visual editor to make it easy to create your own logons which can then be uploaded to websites to be used by others - a great creative outlet and marketing tool for freelance graphic designers! LogonStudio uses .logonxp files rather than requiring users to replace their actual logonui.exe. LogonStudio is a free program, as in no spyware, no adware, and no timeouts.
ObjectDock 1.3
ObjectDock is a program that acts as both a task manager and a program launcher. It lets you organize your short-cuts and running tasks onto an extremely customizable dock that sits on your desktop. Users can customize the look of each item on the dock and set various animation options for when the mouse is over an item on the dock. It is very easy to configure. Windows users are often jealous of the slick looking Mac dock that Macintosh has. ObjectDock is a Windows alternative that can help to increase productivity, as well as helping to make your desktop look great. Tired of hundreds of icons scattered all over your desktop? Finding it difficult to navigate through the many items listed in your Start Bar? Just want a new tool that looks good and reacts in a pleasing way when you interact with it? ObjectDock is a necessary program for everyone ? and it?s free! As in, no spyware, no adware and it never expires. Features of ObjectDock (free version) include: -Put short-cuts on your dock -Display running tasks on your dock -Put docklets on your dock -Icons zoom on mouse-over -Change the appearance of the icons of running tasks and short-cuts -Position dock on any edge of the screen -Optionally represent running programs by snapshot of their window -Optionally hide Windows taskbar -Skinnable ObjectDock 1.3 includes the ability to offset the dock from the edge of the screen. Extra features in ObjectDock Plus ($19.95) include: Tabbed Docks, Multiple Docks, System Tray support, Custom icons for system tray icons, Fly-out menus, Smart edge docking, Taskbar grouping, Multi-monitor support, and tons of customization features.