Ugh, sorry to hear you are having this problem.
I had the same problem when i first set up my new pc. My skin would change to the classic skin and i couldnt choose anything else. wireless mouse wouldnt work either. But it was all fixed when i reformatted it.
I hope you get it to work buddy.

This was never about booting or dual booting,the conversation just went that way...I hadnt had any problems with any of that...this was all about spending 2 days setting up a smooth running Vista install and having WB bugger it up.  (so bad that even uninstalling WB would no longer fix it)  

Thanks for the support friends.  

Now ya know why I said install Vista first, XP w/independent boot mgr second....  

Hate to say I told you so....lol.   

IR... I had a similar issue a while back and it had something to do with the 'Themes Service' in Vista not running. While XP seems to run WB just fine with the 'Themes Service' disabled, Vista apparently needs this service enabled to apply blinds correctly... well that's what I found, cos once 'Themes Service' was re-enabled all was well and WB's applied correctly/those selected other than 'Diamond'.

Also, I dual boot XP & Vista on separate drives without issue, but yrag is right in that you should install Vista first, then XP... cos Vista will always make itself the default OS and seems to install/run better if the BOIS is unencumbered by an already present OS. XP then becomes an independent secondary OS which is unaffected by any issues that may appear in Vista.

Despite it being contrary to MS' advice, I've noticed everything runs better this way at boot-up/in the BOIS, etc. While I've not had the problem with my dual booter, my wife had issues with her machine not seeing XP properly after Vista was installed. In this instance, however, VistaBootPro was ineffective and the issue was remedied by disabling the XP drive in 'device manager' (thus making it invisible) prior to reinstalling Vista, then re-enabling the drive and doing a repair install of XP to bring it back on-line... that way you don't lose your installation or any of your files/proggies, etc.

Yeah, I know, it's a lot of messing around and a pain in the arse, but the end result is worth it.

W/Bs up to and including version 6.0, works fine on my vista pc. All versions and upgrades after that do not work. I have had countless suggestions and help from stardock, but none work. This is not an isolated problem, i have read many reports from members about this but stardock dont seem to be able to solve it. My advise would be to stay with ver 6.0, at least it works...

Give the Brain a pc with vista so we vista users can get Knot Vista and SliderXP!! And Eco when it comes out

Your issue on XP was due to your date being set to 2005.  WB 6 will not apply if the date is 2006 or earlier.

As for your Vista issues, that DX9 runtime dll is nothing to do with WindowBlinds.  In fact I cannot think of anything that would use that dll at startup apart from a deskscapes dynamic dream and I don't think any of our dreams are linked against that particular version.

What AntiVirus did you have installed?  Some AV Packages may block the installation of Windows Services which would cause a problem, but if WBConfig can open then the service should be installed and running.

If a skin gets applied without frames etc, this suggests the skin bitmaps are missing on disk.  If the skin file itself is missing then WB will not load anything, but if the bitmaps are missing then you can end up with an incomplete skin.

If WB only tries an apply once then you almost certainly have something blocking WBs interprocess communication. 

This is what vStyler first suggested...after 3 tries with impulse...all Stardock software was uninstalled...rebooted and then used sdc to reinstall WB 3 more times.Vista became unuseable after the 3rd uninstall.Upon reboot immediately got the dll error and explorer went into a restart loop.

Neil...the clock issue was a later symptom that appeared after I got rid of Vista...I reset my cmos to factory and booted into XP...I didnt see the clock prob til I had already uninstalled WB but before rebooting.IF I had seen it,I probably wouldnt have had to bother.It was just a goofup.  

As I said...only WB and AVG and Impulse were installed(and later sdc of course)...it was a new install of Vista.
Yes,the blur screen did appear but skins would not change,couldnt unload WB,couldnt get Aero back without a reboot.Ended up with parts from 3 different skins showing.  

Sorry PD JIM...I missed your reference to Vista boot pro because I wasnt having any boot related issues...had 3 OS's installed and no problem choosing beetween them.Only after removing Vista did it become neccessary to cleanup the boot menu of Vistas trash.  

I am glad it is all working for you now.

Out of interest did you install AVG this time?

Yes but after WB...tho it never mattered in the past and SHOULD NEVER ever matter.  I've never had software ask me to disable any system protection...except WB.(and it shouldnt either)  

Thanks everyone for trying to help or just for following along...it was never in doubt that it COULD work,just frustrating that it didnt work...right away...without extreme effort.  

AVG never once interfered with an install of ANYTHING...not even WB to my knowledge.