For nearly a decade, Object Desktop has been the premiere solution users of Windows to turbo-charge their desktop experience. In 2008, we're going to see some of our biggest changes yet.

Preliminaries

Starting this year, Stardock is going to create two versions of Object Desktop. There will be normal Object Desktop which will have the core parts of the suite (WindowBlinds, IconPackager, DesktopX, etc.) and Object Desktop Ultimate which will a lot more programs in it. All present users of Object Desktop will be automatically migrated to Object Desktop Ultimate.

Another change this year will be how Object Desktop is packaged. In the past, a new user would simply get a serial # and a link to download Stardock Central.

This year, Stardock Central will be going away. Instead, a new program (which we can't yet talk about) will be replacing it to provide a much better experience not just with Object Desktop but in terms of managing all kinds of digital content. Moreover, users will download a core Object Desktop download so that we can assume that certain basic pieces of the program are installed.

The core of Object Desktop 2008 will be:

• WindowBlinds
• IconPackager
• DesktopX
• DeskScapes (if applicable)
• MyColors
• Object Desktop LaunchPad
• New Updating program

Additional programs that will be included with the standard edition of Object Desktop 2008 are:

• SoundPackager
• 3 premium suites plus 3 additional premium suites within the year.

Object Desktop Ultimate will include the above plus all the other programs that you expect with Object Desktop. And as mentioned, if you have Object Desktop at the time of launch, you get Object Desktop Ultimate automatically.

The growing importance of content

As some people have noticed, Stardock Design has begun releasing free content into the community in the form of skins, themes, icons, wallpapers, suites, etc.

One of the big changes for Object Desktop users will come in the form of a steady stream of content that will be free to Object Desktop users. Every so often, Stardock Design will release a new premium suite that will be automatically appended to your account as something you can download through MyColors. The minimum commitment is 6 per year (1 every other month).

Stardock wants to be able to fully demonstrate the capabilities of Object Desktop as well as provide samples and tutorials to up and coming skin authors who want to make their own stuff.

So what else is new?

We're still in the process of migrating things to Windows Vista. By the end of 2008, everything should have a Windows Vista version (that includes 64-bit). In fact, on that front, we will begin acquiring increasing numbers of 64-bit Vista boxes for making us "live in" 64-bit mode.

Windows XP users will continue to see Object Desktop grow in the sense that features thought to be possible only on Windows Vista will migrate to Windows XP users.

We'll also have a lot of updates to existing programs including:

IconPackager 4

Most people may not realize how important IconPackager 4 is going to be. If you're a Windows Vista user, you must realize by now that most existing icon packages are useless on Vista. That's a real shame since there's so many good icon packages out there. IconPackager 4 will address this in the following ways:

1. IconPackager 4 will allow users to independently set their live folder icons from the rest of the package.
2. IconPackager 4 will automatically scale up existing icons such that they look correct on Windows Vista.
3. IconPackager 4 will have a much better user interface to allow us to expand its base feature set more easily in the future.

IconDeveloper 2

Noticed that there aren't as many new icon packages as there used to be? That's because it's a lot more work to make icons for Windows Vista.

IconDeveloper has been rewritten for the Vista age. It runs fine on Windows XP but now icon artists can future-proof their work. Eventually Stardock hopes to add wizards and other helpers to make creating Vista-specific elements even easier.

IconDeveloper 2 will be part of Object Desktop Ultimate.

TweakVista 1.x

You may have heard somewhere but not all people are perfectly happy with Windows Vista. TweakVista is Stardock's answer to this by allowing users to tweak and alter Windows Vista safely in ways that match the user's preference.

TweakVista 1.1 is due out shortly with additional updates due throughout the year. Available on the Ultimate Edition.

WindowBlinds 6.x

WindowBlinds will, of course, continue to evolve throughout the year. There's a lot of area where we still want to give users more control. For example, fonts. We want users to be able to control fonts to a much greater degree than they currently do.

DesktopX 3.x

DesktopX has not had a smooth ride on Windows Vista. That's because of the UAC. DesktopX widgets and such rely heavily on VB Script which the UAC has made a lot more difficult to deal with. Another popular type of widget/gadget have been ones that make use of the NT performance monitors.which are largely gone or forbidden in Windows Vista. So now you know why DesktopX 3.5 hasn't shown up in a timely manner.

So what's the future of DesktopX? Once Vista SP1 officially comes out, Stardock will be able to make final compatibility testing and release. But that won't be the end of the DesktopX journey on Vista. That's just the beginning.

DesktopX's future will rely increasingly on providing more plug-ins to allow authors to build a lot more types of widgets and gadgets. We're starting with the media player gadget. Then we plan to create:

• Weather gadget plugins
• Performance monitor plugins
• Clock plugins
• RSS plugins
• Stock plugins
• And others on request

In this way, the "coding part" is handled by Stardock and skinners can focus purely on the skinning part.

DeskScapes 2.x

DeskScapes is another key component of Object Desktop that a lot of resources will be going into. DeskScapes is a lot like WindowBlinds in those early days where users found that some skins used virtually no CPU and others used a ton. DeskScapes is like that too. Some of the included content uses virtually no CPU at all. But on the other hand, some of the video-based content uses quite a bit. Your mileage will vary.

SkinStudio 6

There's still some work to do on SkinStudio 6 but we're getting close to the point where we think it's ready for general availability and then we can move on to adding more features (like batch colorizing!). SkinStudio 6 is key because it will allow more casual users to be able to make skins again.

MyColors

No single project had more resources put on it this year than MyColors. On the surface, it seems like such a simple program. But under the covers, it's a feat of engineering. Consider all the permutations in which someone might have WindowBlinds, IconPackager, etc. installed and making sure that users who get a MyColors theme can run them via WindowBlinds or MyColors depending on the version. MyColors 2008 was the first version that could safely coincide with WindowBlinds and IconPackager on the same system thanks to its self-healing architecture.

Other Notes

This is by no means an exhaustive list. There will be updates to most of the other programs already in there along with the addition of a couple of new programs later this year that I can't yet talk about. Suffice to say that both XP users and Vista users will be in for some pleasant surprises we think.

But 2008 will definitely mark a turning-point for Object Desktop. It will be the year in which we explicitly have a consumer version as well as a power user version and are able to cater to both groups accordingly.

Probably the single biggest change will be the vast increase in the amount of resources dedicated to Object Desktop. This can be seen most particularly in the content arena with free MyColors themes being provided every other month or so.

Object Desktop 2008 (standard) will remain $49.95 and renew for $34.95. Object Desktop Ultimate Edition will list for $69.95 and renew for $39.95. All existing Object Desktop users at the time of launch will be migrated automatically to Ultimate edition.