Work wonderfull With win 10 tp 9879. danks for best tool.
Indeed it is an old reply. Do you have a point?
Maybe you've been out of the loop...
Let me fill you in:
Win10 compatibility was claimed in the original mass mailing. It was futher supported in the posts here.
I came here because it would not work for me. The response I received was "oh it works just fine, it is something on your end".
I mentioned that I had tried to install in on Win10 x64 pro and on Win10 x64 Enterprise and it did not work on either.
I got a specious response that this was a problem on my end, in spite of a clean install of Win10.
After others chimed in with the same issues and problems the "we never claimed compatibility" posts went up.
e.g Reply 19.
Now you are caught up.
MS has a bit of an attitude sometimes. An old but well-known example was when they were promoting Office over everybody's favorites, Word Perfect, Harvard Graphics, Lotus 1-2-3, and then Lotus Notes, the mantra for DOS/Windows 3.x/95/M.E. updates was "DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run!" The WIN32S shell-and-pea game that they enticed developers to use was just an OS/2 detector - MS never used it in their own applications. Etc. If they want something themselves, they have a long history of hip-bumping whoever is offering it in competition.
My read on things is that Windows 8 and later seem to clunk multitasking when it is doing anything that updates the registry, like closing a window of an app that dynamically changes registry values, and possibly other things like un-doing checkout of application files, and starting most apps is locked out until Windows is done. During the lockout, OD won't respond.
Listen. I've been a customer since OS2 Warp days. It wasn't always like this so yes I hope my comments will cause someone to wake up and make some changes. It's truly a sad, sad, thing seeing what's going on.
If you read the whole thread, it seems that they lost the lead developer for OD. I would surmise that he didn't leave sufficient documentation behind to provide others with what they needed for continuous support of OD code. In any case, real-time system extensions like OD all required serious attention with Windows 8 API changes.
Stardock also has a heavy preponderance of Windows 7 users, according to another post.
I've noticed that Windows 10 "thunks" or locks out real-time system calls whenever it closes an application, including Windows Explorer instances (i.e. whenever you close a file explorer window). Nothing responds when this is happening. I haven't seen serious thunking since Windows 3.x/95/98/ME. Seeing it in an os with the OS/2 NT -> Windows NT -> Windows 2000 pedigree tells me that MS just doesn't care anymore about serious workstations.
I still use OD on Windows 10. I've learned to use taskbar icons to switch the foreground and such while Windows 10 is thunked, and to simply wait to use my massive tabbed dock until Windows 10 unthunks.
I tried the competing product touted by its developer on this thread. Although the autosizing QuickLaunch dock appears to work while Windows 10 is thunking, their tabbed dock is already defined and fully populated with common system calls like opening the file manager on initial installation, and I saw no simple way to generate and populate my own tabbed dock - and the tabbed dock shows responsiveness issues when Windows 10 is thunking. Interesting, but not easily customizable, and I'm not sure that the quicklaunch icons responded when Windows 10 is thunked, and I uninstalled it and went back to OD.
When user OS stats and user base show sufficient Windows 10 user base potential to pay a new high-level developer to take on OD, Stardock will have a rewrite of OD for us. In the meantime, it's still the best user interface solution for me and my two Windows 10 machines.
I'm also maintaining a Linux (Debian) computer with LibreOffice and GIMP. Linux seems to be the platform of the future for serious workstations.
It seems strange that OD doesn't work well for some win 10 users and great for others. Could it be certain brands of computers? It would be interesting to see what brand of computers people have when they post to this thread.
I use a run of the mill HP desktop and OD has no issues at all. Win 10 updated to the latest update.
I just reinstalled OD on my Win 10 as of now it seems to be working. The settings window is a little sluggish. I had it installed about 2 months ago and I had problems the the docks hiding, we'll see how it goes.
Chas I'm running a basic HP desktop. HP Envy 700-074. One thing I did add was a small graphics card a GT 730 which took a load off of the cpu for graphics and lite gaming and added another monitor.
If OD has problems I'll uninstall it and go with my Rocket Dock backup. No sense in complaining about it there's alway another program out there to take it's place.
Object Dock in Win 10 is not support but may or may not work in part
View supported programs
https://forums.stardock.com/469435/stardock-software-and-windows-10
The major incompatibility is with UWP apps, which are alien to the Win32 system. No dock will handle them properly unless it has been re-written to work with Windows 10.
You won't be able to add UWP apps to the dock, thus you can't launch them from the dock unless you add an item pointing to a shortcut (.lnk file) rather than the actual UWP app, and if you have the dock set to show running applications any open UWP app will appear as empty icons or as double icons (can't remember which anymore, if not both). Also, because UWP apps are not closed in the same way Win32 applications are when you exit them, the empty icons will remain visible in the dock even after closing the UWP app.
If you don't care about UWP apps (personally I don't) and you don't have OD set to display running applications, then OD will function pretty much normally.
This thread is still going? C'mon... developer is GONE. No more updates. I use dosbox to run old unsupported games. ObjectDock is a lost cause.
The long-departed developer doesn't own OD. Stardock owns OD.
Perhaps the reason that OD works for me on Windows 10 is that I have a workstation, and UWP "apps" just aren't something I'm interested in on my home office workstation. If I understand UWP properly, these are the "Universal applications" on the Start menu, all of which seem to be suited for a content consumer on a tablet or whatever.
UWP means Universal Windows Platform, and UWP apps are 'sandboxed' applications that were supposed to work on all versions of Windows, from PCs, to tablets to phones.
...except Microsoft gave up on its Windows phone business and now it does not have a Universal Windows Platform anymore.
So why are they still moving most of the Windows 10 settings/applications to UWP ? Because UWP apps are just a piece of a much bigger and much more sinister plan to put both users and developers 100% on Microsoft's leash.
Windows is based on the Win32 API, which is an open platform and one of the reasons why Windows became the 'universal' OS of choice. Microsoft are thus trying to kill Win32, which they can't control, and replace it with the UWP, which has absolutely nothing to do with Windows as we know it. If they succeed, they will have full control over the platform, nothing can be sold except through the Windows Store (with a 30% cut for Microsoft) and Microsoft will always get the last word on what gets published and what not. In return, we get under-powered, slow as molasses, UWP applications. Ah, and if and when that happens Microsoft can then finally turn their business model into Windows-as-a-service, Microsoft's wet dream where you have to pay them a monthly fee to keep Windows running, or lose access to ALL your paid for applications.
So lose-lose for everyone (users and developers alike) - except for Microsoft, of course.
The problem, and the reason this plan might still succeed, is that people are completely apathetic these days. I don't know if it's something in the water, but just a few years ago the mere *suspicion* that Microsoft *might* be spying on its users would cause a universal riot. Now we know for sure and NOBODY CARES.
So, in a way, it can be said we will deserve whatever we get, because we were too busy watching Netflix and other things to bother fighting for our rights and privacy.
JcRabbit, this is why I think MS is forcing its own decline. MS had great success in the mid 1990's convincing the magazine-educated of the industry that they knew, nay - controlled the future of computing. They got most of the developers and wannabes to "sign up with the winner" thereby becoming advocates, and turned the PC business into something that IBM sold to the Chinese. They shouldered aside Word Perfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and Harvard Graphics in favor of Office 1995 by giving it to commercial Windows licensees for free for a year. Since then, less successful efforts include
My Office 2007 will reach end-of-life in less than a year, but instead of renting Office 360, I'm moving to Apache LibreOffice. When I replace my Nokia phone with its increasingly unsupported Windows 8.1, it will be with an Android phone or a flip-phone.
I'm running Linux on a spare machine with a KVM so that I can switch seamlessly back and forth.
Adobe is going to a SaS model, and instead of renting Acrobat, Photoshop, etc. I'm using LibereOffice and Corel PaintShop Pro, and looking at GIMP. I'm looking for a replacement for Dreamweaver.
One of the most profound contributions to economics by John Nash can be summarized as noting that people will do what they want to do, not what you (or your model) thinks they will do. Since you and your model often miss the alternatives that people seek out when they feel they need to do so, disruptive economic changes are often unforeseen.
If you really want to see a revolution, put the SOM from OS/2 on 64-bit Linux and provide a simple, open-source API.
But, back to topic, Object Dock is still a really great UI enhancement, Stardock owns it and has the code, developers have reverse-engineering tools such as Visustin, and when the business numbers are right they will do something with Object Dock. Like make a Linux version.
Linux is definitely not a good environment for commercial applications: it's Open Source, people got used to everything there being free and that is what they now expect. Of course, nothing in life is 'free', as we all need to eat. Besides, Linux already has its fair share of docks: Cairo dock, Docky, etc...
Apart from that, these days there are very few developers in the world capable of - or willing to - do these kind of applications, at least on Windows: owning the source code means nothing if you have nobody to work on it. The only dock that is currently still in active development, as you know since you mentioned it above, although indirectly, is Winstep Nexus. All the others are dead or in limbo.
The vast majority of developers have also moved on to managed code. The problem with managed code is that it is incredibly bloated and simply does not have the performance required to make dock-like applications. It's ridiculous, just look at how long it takes for a basic .NET UWP app to simply OPEN and pop up on your screen!
For some reason Microsoft is NOT eating its own dog food (no major MS application is written in .NET or has been converted to UWP, they are all Win32 C++) although it has no problem peddling it to others.
In the old times, when Moore's law ('processing power doubles every two years') was still in effect, hardware advancements would eventually mitigate this added slowness, but Moore's law is no longer true, and hasn't been for a very long time (in fact, Microsoft was counting on it while it was developing Vista, but it didn't happen, which is one of the reasons Vista ran like a dog on the hardware of the time). We have reached physical limits, in terms of die size, thermal dissipation, etc, so exponential performance increases are a thing of the past.
If anything, we are now going backwards (Meltdown and Spectre).
The problem is that users don't really have a choice but to stick with Microsoft and Windows, as I suspect MS would be HURTING BADLY right now otherwise. Apple is no different than Microsoft in this respect (in fact, they're worse!) and all their products are terribly expensive, and Linux, even after all these years, is STILL not ready to replace Windows ease of use, etc... At the very least it is still *perceived* as an OS for techies and not for the Joe Users of the world.
Linux is the answer to a question that has never been asked....
When Linux was new, applications were horribly expensive because, as was explained to me when I asked about an application on the phone once, "the Unix pricing model is in effect for Linux applications." Sourceforge and GNU put an end to that. But I would pay for a great Linux application, such as a Linux port of Corel PaintShop Pro with AfterShot Pro. People pay for Linux all the time, in terms of support contracts for the OS, and applications. Some people just go to Sourceforge or GNU for free applications. Commercial users and seriously committed Linux people do buy applications.
The Mac should be the second line of defense. It was well on the way to becoming that in the mid 1990's, when Apple licenses Motorola and others to make Mac-compatible hardware with Mac OS pre-installed. But when that took off, Mac abruptly stopped licensing hardware. Without the free market driving innovation, the Mac will never be attractive to many people.
Linux is a learning curve, and its apps are a learning curve. But there are commercial organizations that use RHEL under maintenance contract with supported application suites.
Dear Stardock.... we really grew fond of Objectdock and felt you had a great piece of software that was worth the purchase. It gave us a real productive tool and really was cool to look at and customize. Hopefully you will reconsider updating the program and we will support it financially as long as it's reasonably priced. Make us happy and you will have more sales to justify the cost of development. We are loyal customers who really love this program. C'Mon! (pretty please?!!!)
LOL. So many people here don't seem to get it. It's called "big business". Anyone seriously think that this miserably few amount of posts here and elsewhere is gonna sway anyone? I notice some WinStep avatars here. There's an alternative. Nexus is better and, afaik, still in active development. There is no more hope for ObjectDock. Give it up.
jspuckett... thanks so much for turning me on to Winstep. Amazing and far more robust, quick and feature packed that Object dock. Wow...
Ok, then if this is the major problem (UWP) why can't compatibility settings overcome the problem and if so why doesn't SD say so instead of just saying "you're out of luck, and we don't care".
Try this graph for PC's which IS what we're talking about now isn't it? Stop playing games with data, the point is the software was advertised as compatible with WIN10. People bought it and it proved to NOT be compatible with WIN10
Nice plot. But it combines Windows 3.x, Windows 95/98/ME, Windows 2000/XP, Windows Vista/7, Windows 8/8.1, and Windows 10. A post by a Stardock person a few months ago showed that people browsing Stardock pages had under 25% of Windows usage, and about half use Window 7, which reflects the world out there.
I use OD under Windows 10 Pro and love it. I tried Winstep for a few weeks and found the tabbed docks pre-populated with useless links, large, and difficult to customize. On my Object Desktop tabbed dock, I have ten or so tabs, each with ten or so apps, and can't give those up. Yes, Winstep's scaled dock at the bottom of the screen was a clone of OD's scaled dock and seemed to scale when Windows 10 was closing a window and such, but I didn't see any difference in responsiveness of the icons. Altogether it took up 25% of my screen and I had to peek at my OD tabbed dock to get at my 100 or so custom icons. Eventually I uninstalled it.
The problem with OD with Windows 10 as I understand it is that it doesn't support "universal apps," the touchscreen-controlled full-screen-only apps for tablets and phones. I have none of those and don't plan any.
I use a three year old Toshiba AMD notebook. I'm running the latest version of Win 10. Its not really set up to run Win 10 because of its age but it works. I've had OD for a long time now and other than it being slow like the rest of my stuff it still works. If I knew why it worked for some but not others I'd be rich. Lol
Ok, this certainly justifies an intervention to clarify a few points (sorry Jafo): while I certainly agree with the 'different strokes, different folks' argument, as you can't argue with personal preference, that doesn't seem to be the case here.
I think this is what happens when people try something new expecting things to work the same way they did before.
The Shelf (tabbed dock) in Winstep Xtreme and Nexus Ultimate is fully customizable. Therefore, if it uses too much screen space for you, resize it. If it has links in its default configuration that are useless to you, just remove them (right click, delete). If it has tabs that do not interest you, remove those too (right click, delete) and add any tabs that might be of interest to you (right click, add new tab).
I'm mentioning this last bit because the Shelf also supports special function tabs, like Folder tabs, Desktop tab, My Computer tab, Recent Documents tab, Control Panel tab, Documents tab, Themes tab, Apps tab, and many others, all capable of displaying different things and with different functions - and all with full drag & drop support. There is a reason Winstep does not call the Shelf a simple 'tabbed dock': because it is SO MUCH MORE than that.
Nexus also features what must be the QUICKEST and EASIEST method to customize dock and Shelf icons, but, of course, first you need to learn about it: once you've populated the dock with all the applications you wanted via drag & drop, you THEN open the folder containing all your favorite icon images and start dragging those PNG and ICO files straight INTO the shortcuts in the dock. You'll be done in less than a minute: no need to waste a LOT of time right clicking -> Item Properties -> Change Icon for each item, you just drag that PNG, ICO or TIF image file and drop it directly into the item in the dock - and Bob's your uncle!
I don't want to say more than I strictly should to counter argue what you said because even though Winstep and Stardock have always been on friendly terms, this is still an OD support thread. So I will only add this: all the things you complained about can be easily and quickly changed, and everything new has a learning curve. All that probably happened is that moving on to another application would end up being a lot of work for you - nobody is looking forward to customizing over 100 icons again, after all, especially not if you don't know the trick above yet.
Enough with the FUD and advertising for competing products. Most forums on the WWW would delete your posts and band you by IP address for that.
Jkbeard. Member Number: 331635
JcRabbit, Member Number: 261
This alone should tell you a lot.
As for the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), show me ONE SINGLE INSTANCE where I have done that.
As for 'advertising', I am writing from the Wincustomize forums, which have been hosting Winstep themes from the very beginning. This is not advertising, advertising is when I post a new release announcement in the Wincustomize forums with the blessing of Stardock and the Wincustomize moderators, as I have done many times before.
What I did above was reply to direct criticism, which I don't agree with, of Winstep products. Anyway, if you want to discuss this further (as well as providing proof of FUD), please take it to another thread and I will be more than happy to oblige.
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