Customizing Windows has always been Stardock's specialty, and WindowBlinds has long been one of the best apps to do just that. WindowBlinds allows you to radically change the way Windows looks, from the Start menu, to the taskbar, to the app windows.

WindowBlinds 11 is the latest version of the app, designed for Windows 11, and while it's still really cool. But the constant changes to Windows and the fact that some apps use custom UIs sort of break the illusion and make this app a little less appealing.

About this review: Stardock provided us with an invitation key for ObjectDesktop for this and other software reviews. The company had no input in its content.

Pricing and availability

WindowBlinds has been around for over two decades, but WindowBlinds 11 was released back in 2022, targeting Windows 10 and 11.

You can buy WindowBlinds 11 for $20 in a standalone release directly from Stardock, or get it as part of the ObjectDesktop subscription, including a lot of other customization apps like Start11 and Fences 5. It's also on Steam, though it costs $30 there.

What I like

There are a ton of customization options

WindowBlinds is a very straightforward app. It gives you themes you can apply to your Windows 11 desktop. Essentially, the themes will apply to the taskbar, Start menu, app windows, and OS dialogs and windows, like File Explorer, Control Panel, or Device Manager.

The cool thing about WindowBlinds themes is just how far they can go in terms of changing how your PC looks. WindowBlinds themes can include custom window control buttons (like close and minimize), colors and gradients, and even all kinds of textures for the Start menu and window frames. There are some really fun designs available that can make your PC feel truly unique.

The best part about all of this is just how many themes there are. WindowBlinds includes a built-in theme store, though you can also go to WinCustomize to get hundreds of themes that can be applied to your desktop. There's so much choice with some truly cool designs (and many not-so-great ones) from the community, so you can explore to your heart's content and make Windows as hideous or beautiful as you want.

WindowBlinds also gives you some extra options so you can change the theme's colors and how they are applied, as well as transparency settings for UI elements to get just the right look. There's a lot to like here.

It integrates with Start11

What makes WindowBlinds extra cool is that it also integrates with other Stardock apps, so many of them can pull theming elements from WindowBlinds skins. The best example is probably Start11, which can really make the theme you apply much more interesting since the Start menu looks completely different with these themes.

Considering all of Stardocks's apps are paid, and WindowBlinds is particularly pricy, seeing this integration is great.

What I don't like

It's just not the same with Windows 11

In recent years, especially with Windows 11, Microsoft has been making some deep changes to the UI on Windows, which completely alter how certain UI elements are rendered. Changes have also been frequent, making it hard for developers to keep up with everything Microsoft is doing.

As a result, WindowBlinds today feels like a very incomplete and sometimes almost buggy app, which is really unfortunate for something that relies so heavily on making your PC feel completely different. For example, WindowBlinds skin can change the taskbar, but not the Start menu, Widgets panel, or notifications panel. All of these things are still the exact same designs no matter what you do, so you're always going to feel like something is missing. At best, you can change the color of these UI elements in the Window settings to match the theme you're using, but it won't be perfect.

A lot of apps have custom UIs

On top of that, many apps these days have custom UIs that WindowBlinds can't override. My main apps while I'm working are Vivaldi and Slack, both of which do their own thing so the effects of my theme are almost not noticeable. Even enabling the native title bar option in Vivaldi does nothing to help here. And some apps, like Photoshop, are just plain glitchy when using a WindowBlinds theme.

In some cases, like Google Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, Stardock does provide instructions to allow you to theme those browsers, but it's a workaround that's a bit more complicated than most people would like, and it also leaves out a lot of apps that may not support those workarounds.

That Start11 integration should go further

To work around some of these limitations, Stardock does enable Start menu configuration if you're using Start11. It's an extra cost, but it's the only thing Stardock could really do here.

The problem is, even if you have Start11, the only way you're getting WindowBlinds integration is if you set the Start menu style to Windows 7's design. In my opinion, the Windows 7 design is the least interesting, so it's a huge bummer that Stardock didn't take further advantage of this customization to enable WindowBlinds support in all of its Start menu designs.

Instead, all the Start menu designs keep the same basic Windows look, with no option to choose. I get that some of these designs are meant to look modern, but a toggle to enable WindowBlinds theming for them couldn't hurt.

Should you buy WindowBlinds?

I really want to love WindowBlinds, and I do love that it offers such crazy themes that can really change how parts of Windows look. But the themes are just too limited in what they can do, even with apps like Start11 on your system. At the end of the day, I can't really recommend it when it feels kind of half-baked. There are far more essential apps to install on a Windows 11 PC.

You should buy WindowBlinds if:

• You want to change the look of your taskbar and Windows dialogs to something more out there
• You have Start11 and use a Windows 7 theme
• You don't mind having some UI elements unchanged

You shouldn't buy WindowBlinds if:

• You want a consistent theme for all UI elements
• You don't have Start11 or are using any of the modern designs
• $20 sounds like too much