Now available for purchase through Stardock!

SpaceMonger enables the fast discovery of files and folders taking up storage space on computers, shared network and personal cloud storage on Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive services.

Cloud storage may seem unlimited, but it is not free and does need to be managed. SpaceMonger is the first storage management tool supporting popular cloud storage services in addition to local PC, network and virtual storage. SpaceMonger even understands soft-links and mount points.

Learn more at the website.

Additional Key Features

• Scan, map and manage PC, network and cloud storage

• Copy, move and delete files to free up storage space

• Locate large files and folders quickly with Treemap visuals

• Find files by size, type and custom criteria with flexible search

• Take clean-up actions on dynamically built file lists

Get SpaceMonger now!

Each year we send out a customer survey which many of you probably participated in, which asks our customers a variety of questions and gives us a look at our customer base and gives you a chance to give feedback that we can work with.  We take this data and look at it very carefully, and put together the results and share it with our community. 

Stardock’s President and CEO Brad Wardell presents the Customer Report and talks about where Stardock started, what we’ve been doing, and where we are going in the future. 

The full report can be read and downloaded here: https://www.stardock.com/press/CustomerReports/Stardock2012.pdf

If you have already upgraded to Windows 8 Pro, be sure to visit http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/feature-packs before January 31 to take advantage of the free Windows 8 Media Center Pack offer.

The Media Center pack also includes video codecs for decoding MPEG2 videos (these were previously available in Windows 7, but are limited to the Media Center pack for Windows 8 Pro users).

Even if you have no plans to use Media Center, we encourage you to take advantage of this free upgrade AND use the code before the end of January. The future DeskScapes 8 beta and release will be encouraging the use of AVI/WMV codecs for dreams.

We are excited to announce the winners in the Wallpapers category for Most Creative and Most Usable in the 2012 GUI Champs!  We had over 70 wallpaper entries and it took our judges a while to decide on the finalists, which were then open to public voting.

Now for the winners!

Most Creative

First Place: The Cyper Club by neone6

Second Place: Water Towers by RomanDA

Third Place: Eyecon by TheMasterBaron

Most Usable

First Place: Galaxus 7 by roflmfaoo

Second Place: Bashful Benny waited too long by teddybearcholla

Third Place: Morning Glow by DEVJIT

Prizes:

Most Creative

1. 1st Place:

   $150 Cash, Logitech Optical Gaming Mouse G400, 1 Year Object Desktop Subscription and 1 Year WinCustomize Subscription

2. 2nd Place:

   $100 Cash, 1 Year Object Desktop Subscription and 1 Year WinCustomize Subscription

3. 3rd Place:

   $30 Stardock Money*, 1 Year Object Desktop Subscription and 1 Year WinCustomize Subscription

Most Usable

1. 1st Place:

   $150 Cash, Logitech Optical Gaming Mouse G400, 1 Year Object Desktop Subscription and 1 Year WinCustomize Subscription

2. 2nd Place:

   $100 Cash, 1 Year Object Desktop Subscription and 1 Year WinCustomize Subscription

3. 3rd Place:

   $30 Stardock Money*, 1 Year Object Desktop Subscription and 1 Year WinCustomize Subscription

Congratulations to the winners, and a big thanks to everyone who submitted wallpapers!

The 2012 GUI Champs is now officially open for submissions!

http://www.guichamps.com/

Thousands of dollars in cash and prizes is up for grabs from our sponsors at Logitech, Stardock, and WinCustomize.  Submissions are open for wallpapers, WindowBlinds skins, and DeskScapes animated wallpapers!

http://www.guichamps.com/prizes

The first category, Wallpapers, closes on October 31st, and the full schedule can be found on the GUI Champs site.

Multiplicity gives you the ability to control and quickly switch between multiple computers with one keyboard and mouse, reducing complexity and freeing up desk space for more efficient use.  Multiplicity 2.0 is currently in BETA and you're invited to try it!

Features in Multiplicity 2:

• NEW! Simple Setup
  Install Multiplicity 2 on both computers, enter the secondary computer name and passcode, and you're connected!
  
• NEW! Transfer Data Between Your PCs
  Copy and paste text, images, and files between your PCs. Multiplicity 2 also adds support for drag and drop of files and folders between machines.
  
• NEW! Centralized Audio
  Centralize audio from all of your PCs to a single PC ensure you never miss an email, chat or stock price alert. This capability is perfect for stock trading environments and call centers.
  
• NEW! Data Security
  User data is AES-256 encrypted for additional security in sensitive work environments like financial institutions and emergency management centers. Multiplicity’s settings can also be locked to prevent non-administrative users from altering the configuration.
  
• NEW! Send Keyboard Input to All Computers Press CTRL three times and Multiplicity starts sending keyboard input to all connected PCs.
  
• Control up to 9 machines
  With a purchased copy of Multiplicity 2, control up to 8 secondary computers in addition to your primary machine.

The Multiplicity 2 BETA is available as a free download for controlling one additional computer from https://www.stardock.com/products/multiplicity/beta/.

Note: If you currently have MP1 installed, you will need to uninstall and reboot (the installer prompts this).

The latest update for WindowBlinds is now available!  WindowBlinds is the absolute best way to change the complete look and feel of the Windows desktop.

The 7.41 update includes:

• Updated My Computer progress bars to paint with skin progress bar image
• Firefox fixes for skins with very large titlebars
• Opera 12 fixes
• No changes when running on Windows XP

Don’t have WindowBlinds?  Get it here!

https://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/

You can download WindowBlinds 7.41 from the Stardock download page (http://download.stardock.com) or via the beta of Stardock Central (https://www.stardock.com/products/stardockcentral).

Today we have released a new build of the popular Start8 application for Windows 8!

We added a new feature that we think you'll love:

• Automatically load your Windows desktop on login (vs the start screen)

Just a reminder of the other features Start8 includes:

• Adds a start button back to your taskbar
• Adds control over the "Start" menu size on the Explorer desktop
• Adds option for the "WinKey" to show fullscreen "Metro" desktop - Adds Run... option via right-click menu
• Adds Shutdown... option via right-click menu
• Choose a custom Start button image

Start8 requires Windows 8 Consumer or Release Preview.

Download now at - https://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

What used to be called “RC” (Release Candidate) has been spun to “Preview”, but the meaning remains the same.

Apparently, the W8 RC is planned to be released today. This was “accidentally” revealed in an MS hardware and driver blog post (Chuck Chan, Corporate V.P. Windows Development team), yesterday. The blog post has since been taken down.

Owen Williams nailed the screen shot on Neowin though and here it is:

According to Owen Williams, the W8 Driver Kit will also be made available today.

Check out his article for links which aren’t active yet.

Source:

http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-8-release-preview-to-land-may-31

Microsoft has a huge blog post from the head of the user experience team for Windows 8 about the UI changes and some ideas behind them.  It’s long, but an interesting read.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/18/creating-the-windows-8-user-experience.aspx

“So what is the role of the desktop in Windows 8?

It is pretty straightforward. The desktop is there to run the millions of existing, powerful, familiar Windows programs that are designed for mouse and keyboard. Office. Visual Studio. Adobe Photoshop. AutoCAD. Lightroom. This software is widely-used, feature-rich, and powers the bulk of the work people do on the PC today. Bringing it forward (along with the metaphors such as manual discrete window sizing and overlapping placement) is a huge benefit when compared to tablets without these features or programs. It is an explicit design goal of Windows 8 to bring this software forward, run it better than in any previous version of Windows, and to provide the best environment possible for these products as they evolve into the future as well.

We see our approach validated time and time again. On one hand, the makers of tablets and phones are in a race to add “PC capabilities” to their devices: support for peripherals like printing, remote access, high-resolution screens, or classes of new APIs for developers that already exist in Windows. At the same time, we also see consumers demanding features in these platforms that have existed for years in Windows—from things as mundane as full support for the keyboard and mouse, to things as complex as support for multiple monitors, background processing, or third-party accessibility tools.”