I had to completely uninstall WSXtreme. I used CCleaner and Wise Care 365 to clean up afterwards.

When I reinstalled, the path to the theme files was set to c:\program files (x86)\winstep\themes, which is what the 'open folder' button in the theme section of preferences showed, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

That location doesn't exist.

In the public documents\winstep folder, the theme folder is empty, the license folder is empty, even though the app shows that it is registered to me.

There are actually 10 themes listed in Workshelf and I can apply them, but I have no idea where they are on disk. I can't find them.

Something has gone completely nuts and I have no idea how to fix it.
I'm so damn frustrated. Could really use some help sir.

David

No need. Winstep applications clean up after themselves.



That can happen only under two extreme circumstances:

1. The setup application thinks it's running under Win9x (i.e.; non-NT based kernel)

Make sure setup was/is not set to run under Win9x compatibility mode.

2. When you run setup, the

C:\Program Files (x86)\Winstep\

folder already existed and had a Licenses and a Themes folder inside it.

This last check exists for backwards compatibility with previous installations under Windows 2000 and XP, which did not enforce read-only on everything inside C:\Program Files (x86)\ and C:\Program Files\

###

My advice is for you to uninstall normally and to tell the uninstaller to remove everything when prompted. Once that is done manually delete the following folders if they exist:

C:\Program Files\Winstep\
C:\Program Files (x86)\Winstep\
C:\Users\Public\Documents\WinStep\
C:\Users\<username>\Appdata\local\Virtual Store\Program Files\Winstep\
C:\Users\<username>\Appdata\local\Virtual Store\Program Files (x86)\Winstep\

Now download the latest full version of Winstep Xtreme from the Winstep web site (http://www.winstep.net/xtreme.zip), unzip and run setup. Make sure setup runs with full admin privileges.

I will do as you say...

when I cleaned up, I deleted all winstep folders in program files (x86) and the public documents\winstep.

Here's the weirdest thing yet: I booted into safe mode and everything was perfect. All the themes were there. Every thing was exactly as it should be. The theme directory was correct. All of it.

Jesus Jorge, that worked. You have no idea how grateful I am for that. Thank you so much sir.

Glad it worked. Wouldn't know what else to tell you if it hadn't lol

Okay so part 2. Why I had to reinstall Xtreme in the first place.
I have several applications which use the public documents folder extensively. Yours, Stardock and a few others.
I want to relocate the public documents folder to an SSD drive specifically so the various graphical apps don't need to wait for a disk to spin up.
There are two way I have found to do this. One is straight forward: Boot into safe mode, select the properties of that folder, choose the location tab and change it.
The other way is more dramatic and requires the command line to create junctions with the mklink /j option and other more esoteric DOS stuff.
I used the first method. When I booted back into my desktop, WSX did not know the location of its skin files. Workshelf looked very odd with only floating labels The other applications were working correctly.
I reversed the first method. Back at my desktop, all was well.
I tried the 2nd method. That's when it all went to hell lmao.
So, Jorge, can you figure out why Extreme loses track of the skin files when the public documents folder is redirected?

Sure. Winstep stores the complete folder path to the bitmaps of the current theme in the Registry. So, when you moved the Public Folders, that path no longer pointed to the correct location.

People don't usually go around changing the location of the Public Documents folder.

However... did you try going to the Themes tab? I could almost bet (but I would have to look at the code to make sure) that if you had done that you would have found all your themes there. In which case you only needed to re-apply the current theme for all to be good.

The 'Open Folder' button points to where Xtreme believes the folder to exist, the address hard wired in the registry for the current theme (I checked all that stuff looking for some way to tell Xtreme to look somewhere else.) Since that folder no longer exists, it just throws an error and it can't be changed.

From what I have read, my method one is supposed to redirect all calls to the Public Documents folder to the new location. The OS is supposed to take care of that once the folder is moved. It used to work very well in Win 7.

I was trying to avoid the lag from the HDD having to spin up in order for the Stardock and Xtreme apps to find their skinning images and etc and also I wanted all those files off my system disk to spare me some room

The path to the *current theme* is indeed hard wired in the registry to whatever was the previous location, and that is also the path the 'Open Folder' button uses to open the folder where the *current theme* files are supposed to be (or were).



However, the path to the actual Winstep Themes folder is NOT hardwired. It is retrieved at startup from CSIDL_COMMON_DOCUMENTS, and that is the path used to look for themes, license keys, etc...

So, after moving the Public Documents folder to a new location/hard drive, the Themes tab in Preferences should still have shown you *all* of your installed themes.

The only thing that would not be working properly is the current theme, but that could be easily fixed by re-applying it again from the Themes tab (which would have updated the 'hard wired' path to the new location).

hmmm. I just tried method one again. Same result. The Themes tab is only showing the themes that come with the default installation I suppose. I can apply them, but when I click on the 'Open Folder' button I get an error stating that 'C:\Users\Public\Documents' doesn't exist. Which is correct. It should be looking for D:\Public Documents\Winstep\...

Can I go to CSIDL_COMMON_DOCUMENTS and change that entry to the new location?

Where is that location?

No, that is one of many Windows constants to be used with an API call to determine the actual location of common Windows folders. CSIDL_COMMON_DOCUMENTS returns the *current* location of the Public Documents folder.

Normally this is C:\Users\Public\Documents\

So, if you moved the Public Documents folder to D:\Public Documents\, that is what the API call returns. It will also be the path used by Winstep Xtreme to enumerate the available themes (i.e.; <CSIDL_COMMON_DOCUMENTS>\Winstep\Themes\ , which in your case will translate to D:\Public Documents\Winstep\Themes\).

If it was still using the old C:\Users\Public\Documents\Winstep\Themes\ path then the Themes tab would be empty, since there isn't anything on that folder anymore now that you moved it to the D: drive.

Just in case, have a look:

Does C:\Users\Public\Documents\Winstep\Themes\ still exist? If so, is there anything inside it?

And what is inside D:\Public Documents\Winstep\Themes\ ?

When I change it to d:\public documents, the themes folder, license folder, everything is in that location. So it would be d:\public documents\winstep\themes\...

There is no longer any c:\user\public\documents folder. But the open folder button still points to c:\user\public\documents\winstep\themes\... and only the default themes are showing in the themes tab.

I can't get why this isn't working.

Ok, forget entirely about the Open Folder button for now, please.

What worries me is you saying that only the default themes are showing in the themes tab. Again, please look under

D:\Public Documents\Winstep\Themes\

What do you see? Perhaps posting a screenshot of the contents of that folder would help.

If you uninstalled Winstep Xtreme before to solve the previous mess and you told it to delete everything, then it also deleted *all* your themes. When you re-installed Xtreme, it installed only the themes that go with the program (i.e.; the default themes).

That's what I think is happening.

Luckily (provided you haven't emptied your Windows Recycle Bin in the mean time) you will probably still be able to find all your old themes inside the Recycle Bin.

I have all my themes backed up on another external drive

Here are pics of the old and new locations. Winstep does not see this at all.
This time, there are no themes listed in the themes tab.