Desktop X 2??

Well, not yet. This is what can be told about today's DX development. Alberto is working like mad on DX2. The latest internal build is good news for complicated DXPlayer objects. It is very fast even with a lot of sliders/faders (which are fixed too). And Alberto was very excited about shadows and he was shouting a lot of about kicking something (cannot repeat what he said here). It took a while to calm him down.

well there have been a few objects that i got today and when i try to load them it says that they were made for a newer version of dx i have 1.96 is there another high version??

Yes. I think it is 1.98e.

I've uninstalled DesktopX (several times now) and downloaded the version available in Component Manager but all I keep getting is v1.96... Any ideas?

1.98e came out yesterday. You should use SDC to download this and other software, Component Manager is being phased out.

So, I have Stardock Central installed - but anything related to DX2, or pre-releases do not show up? Why?

Make sure under the View Menu you have "Show Pre-release version" checked. Also of course it won't say DX2 just DesktopX [Beta] with the current version at 1.99[b].004 . Also make sure you haven't changed settings to disregard viewing DesktopX under View..... Show/Hide Applications.

I have tried all that and the settings but I never see any version above 1.92c through SDC.

Again - you must not have show pre-release settings turned ON. Try tools->refresh when you have enabled that option.

I have checked and double checked that and still nothing above version 1.92c for me.