Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Blinds

"Yahoo! Messenger has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvience. If you were in the middle of something, the information you were working on might be lost. Please tell Microsoft about this problem. We have created and error report that you can send to us"

On and off over time, Windows Blinds has popped up as a topic, problem or possible solution at our forum (WackyB.com Search: Windows Blinds) when it comes to Yahoo! Messenger randomly crashing for no known or logical reason and it seems with Yahoo's latest v8 offering it's become an issue again.

The major problem seems to be that not a lot of Yahoo! users actually realise that it's a conflict between the two programs, Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Blinds, with most users assuming it's Yahoo's latest v8 offering that's entirely to blame.. but that's not the case at all, it's not a fault or a bug in Yahoo! Messenger, it's quite simply that Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Blinds don't play nicely together...

Here's what Windows Blinds by Stardock actually is...
"WindowBlinds is a program that that enables Windows users to completely change the look and feel of the Windows user interface. Users customize Windows by using visual styles (skins) created for WindowBlinds. With these skins, WindowBlinds can change the look of Title bars, borders, Task bar, Start button, Start menu, Progress animations, Toolbar icons, Explorer Views, and virtually every other part of Windows!"

and that is quite simply where the problem resides... Windows Blinds like to skin programs... Yahoo! Messenger is a program that greatly detests being skinned by a blanket approach, in fact any approach outside of Yahoo! Messenger itself, and as such it (Yahoo! Messenger) will spit out a very vague error message before completely shutting itself down and being inoperable, in full or in part.

Some Yahoo users have said it (Yahoo Messenger crashing) never happened in previous Yahoo versions (prior to v8), some have said it did in previous versions but not in v8, either way, you don't have to look very far to see this has been an ongoing issue for some time now, but it appears that in the not too distant future the compatibility issue will be once again addressed so the two programs can live in comfortable, yet silent, harmony with each other once more...

Stardock.com Forum thread Problem with window blinds and yahoo messenger
9 July 06 where Neil Banfield had posted
"A long time ago we modified WB to ignore certain parts of Yahoo messenger due to their skinning messing with WB dlls in memory.  This worked ok until yahoo decided to change their filenames.
The beta releases of WB know about this new filename and all works ok again.
If you exclude the process from WB then it will work perfectly.  Make sure you excluded the right exe.
Personally I am annoyed with Yahoo for randomly changing their filenames especially when they have been made aware of the conflict in the past and have the ability to prevent the conflict at their end."

So it seems there is light at the end of the tunnel.. but for now.. what's the answer to avoiding this conflict that causes Yahoo! Messenger to do everything from fail to load, to randomly crash, to crash to right click, to crash when you click Smileys and / or Audibles?

If you search the Stardock forums (Stardock.com Forum Search: Yahoo), there seems to two solutions currently available that are often mentioned

1. 25 Sept 06 Fix your yahoo
Is your yahoo shutting off with windowblinds.
To fix this right click on yahoo icon go to properties, then compatibility, then check disable visual themes.

2. 30 March 2005 Yahoo Messenger Crashing
Try to add Yahoo Messenger to your Per Applications.
Right-click on the systray Icon of WindowBlinds > Configure WindowBlinds > Per Application > add Per application >
and then browse for your Yahoomessenger executable file.
This should prevent Windowblinds from attempting to skin Yahoo Messenger and thus eliminate the chances of a clash with this program.

Now not being a Windows Blinds user myself it was all a bit of a mystery to me, well in part it was, I say that because while I'd never used Windows Blinds before today I was aware of the tantrum that Yahoo! Messenger can throw when any attempt is made to take it out of it's skin comfort zone as I'd faced exactly the same issue using XNeat. XNeat applies an extremely minor skin change to open applications, that being 3 additional buttons are added in the top right corner of every open window allowing you to pin, roll up or send them to tray but while running XNeat at the same time as Yahoo! Messenger, it would cause Yahoo! to randomly crash and close as it saw fit or I could easily reproduce the crash...

"Yahoo! Messenger has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvience.
If you were in the middle of something, the information you were working on might be lost.
Please tell Microsoft about this problem. We have created and error report that you can send to us"

...by clicking on any of the now customized buttons in the top right hand corner of any open Yahoo! window.

For me, my only solution is to never use XNeat with Yahoo! Messenger, a pain in the bum really, but for Windows Blinds users there are solutions available, yet it appears perhaps not readily available or perhaps just misunderstood, so I thought I'd test out the Stardock forum suggestions myself and see what if any resolution could be

I grabbed Windows Blinds v5.01 from Download.com, created a System Restore point, then took the 11MB download and installed windowblinds5_public.exe without issue, the irony of the Yahoo! Toolbar being offered as part of the Windows Blinds installation wasn't lost on me ;)

Overwhelming... is the best way to discribe my first impression... I checked the included readme.text file and there was no mention of Yahoo! Messenger being a known issue, so I fired up Yahoo! Messenger (v8.0.0.716) and it loaded as per it's usual "norm" for me, it hummed along nicely waiting for me to sign-in, which when the time came, wasn't a problem at all, I logged in as "invisible", came online and went to sent my first IM. I right clicked on a username in my friends list expecting to see the selection menu but Yahoo! instantly died.. no error messages, no windows dialog box, no lock up, nothing... Yahoo! Messenger just vanished and no surprise that yahoomessenger.exe was no longer listed as running process.

I started Yahoo! Messenger again, logged in just per the norm, I was greeted with the standard plugin safe mode warning...

This time I decided to park my right-click and go for left click only with key combinations, so I selected a friend from my list (left click username) and hit Ctrl+M, hit enter and up popped a new IM session window ready to go, typed up a storm with the messages going to and fro with ease.. right up until I used right click to paste some text... once more Yahoo! Messenger crashed with no error message or warning. Grrr! Started Yahoo Messenger, logged in, opened a new window, went to do a ticked off smiley in my new IM session... and again I crashed, no right clicking was involved... strictly all left... no error no warning. Started again... yada yada... now I was holding my breath when I clicked on anything, I tried a variety of Windows Blinds skins and I crashed without every time, no error message.. just a complete Yahoo! Messenger crash.

The biggest tell all that there might be a compatibility issue between Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Blinds, is that while very other program and window I currently have open has been skinned, Yahoo! Messenger has not, but I wasn't surprised by that because after reading the Stardock.com Forums I was aware that Windows Blinds was unable to skin Yahoo! Messenger so by default, with previous releases of Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Blinds ignored the program entirely, it just seems that with Windows Blinds v5.0.0 and Yahoo! Messenger v8.0.0.716, this is no longer by default, and as such, the ignore process has to be manually implimented.

I took both methods recommended at the Stardock.com Forums for a test run....

Windows Blinds Homepage: http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/
Windows Blinds Forum: http://forums.stardock.com
System Requirements:
Windows XP/2003 and Windows Vista (when available).
Windows 2000, ME, 98 users can use WindowBlinds Classic (v4.6).
1GHz or faster processor recommended
60MB free drive space
256MB RAM
Note: A 16MB DirectX 8 or later compatible video card with appropriate driver support is required for per-pixel alpha-blended skins. Some integrated graphics solutions and lower-end cards from before 2004 may not be able to use per-pixel skins.