Any skin - ANY skin - can be used with or without stub files. Also doesn't matter if your blog is the root or in a folder - it's all the same to b2evo and the skins. What version of b2evolution are you running?

b2evolution-1.6-2005-11-25.zip is the version i am running.

thanks for the speedy reply. i am still at an ends :'(

i can now see i am running an alpha.

<-- noob.

ill try the stable

The actual trick is to make sure that the skin you are using is appropriate for the version you've got. There are skins for v1.6, but based on your issue I'd guess you've got a skin for versions less than 1. Sub-1 we should call them, but technically it'll be the .9.* generation.

Anyway hit the skins page again and see the link in the upper right area that offers skins for version 1.6, which is also called phoenix from time to time. Alpha too. Some folk are calling it "the alpha that will die of old age before Francois ever gets around to releasing a beta", but not when Francois is around to hear them say that ;)

thank you guys so much.

the 0.9 version works perfectly.

moral of this story is: do not download the top of the list. stable is good :)

thanks again - im so relieved yay :)