bigmuscle

I must admit that this whole thing is a bit funny. The real reason why I added this messagebox was just an experiment to test users how they behaves if they get something for free. And you can see something weird which I haven't mentioned yet: a) users are complaining about half-an-hour/once-an-hour messagebox, but the period between each popup is not half an hour and it's not either once an hour. The period is much much longer. b) request to display messagebox is sent during the request to draw glass frame. And these requests don't come when desktop is not visible - e.g. you are playing the game etc. Isn't it weird that users complain about something which doesn't exist in real?

This is why I discouraged from using any custom tweaker/installer because they modify registry values which you don't have control on. Then it may result in random errors because the values may be invalid and you don't know about them at all.

Yes, I changed to MessageBoxTimeout function but reason is completely different than bothering with your stupid cracking. However, if you are so active in cracking other's work, you surely will be able to develop Aero Glass completely on your own and there's no need why I should ever release final version and make public version of Win8.1 Aero Glass

It was already discussed before. It means that you have set your custom theme resource to the invalid file.

Also try that your browser can connect to "http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols" (you should get empty page but no error).

It looks like symbol server was down. Wait some time and then restart dwm.exe to try again. Also, remember that you must have internet connection available and check that connections from dwm.exe are not blocked by your firewall.

Final version for Win8 and (private) testing preview for Win8.1 will be available in a few days. Just be patient and do not post any cracked software here (and WB does not provide real glass effect thus it should not be discussed here either).

Can this still be disabled via reg-key? No, it cannot be. It is always enabled. The reason is that it does not make sense to be disabled. Normally symbols are not downloaded at all, the server is contacted only when your DWM is incompatible and if it is disabled, you would not get any glass at all. If you want to hook WinLogon, you must manage to hook e.g.CreateProcess before it launches dwm.exe process else you didn't get nothing. Yes, you can freeze winlogon and kill dwm.exe but it is totally wrong idea. Forcibly killing any process can end up in unexpected behaviour. If you launch dwm.exe on your own, you will also break the security context of your operating system. It will also break the nature of my utility - being native as much as possible - just because OS is designed to work in some way and you completely change its concept. No, it won't be backward compatible because Win8.1 uses different kind of desktop rendering.

EvilAlex: nothing important changed. If loading works for you, it means that you just a won a race which is totally unpredictable. You can win 1000x and then it fails, you fail 1000x and win 10x, just a totally random. I was also thinking about hooking WinLogin but I think it does not solve anything. Now you need to manage to hook DWM before it creates its internal objects. When you move to WinLogon, you need to hook it before it launches dwm.exe, so totally same problem. Or you can write system driver which is loaded during boot (before winlogon.exe) and hook CreateProcess but I think it is too much work for such a small thing. And I think it has no sense to bother with it now because it won't be needed in Win8.1 at all.

it's what i said earlier... check HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT registry branch. Invalid theme will be set there.

When MS changes DWM so much that requested memory address is not found, it will download two files from MS server which allows detecting of exact memory location need to hook. This ensure that DWM will still work when DWM changes without modifying AeroGlass. I will not includd installer at all unless I found a proper way to load glass at Windows start-up. It is still too much dangerous to modify AppInit_DLLs registry so value so it should be done by advanced and not by automatic installer. Download symbol files are dependent on DWM libraries and not on my code. When DWM changes, new symbols are automatically downloaded. Custom themes are off by default, so if you had custom theme applied your system can stuck on reboot.

AERO GLASS for Win8 RC4 * automatic symbols downloading for DWM libraries --> this delays glass loading a bit --> only for udwm.dll and dwmcore.dll (not for themes/shell32 for performance reasons) * added option to enable/disable to bypass theme signature --> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM:BypassThemeSignature (DWORD 0x0 to disable (default) / 0x1 to enable) * custom swatches works with HKCU registry key * fixed crash with 3rd-party DWM hooks (e.g. WindowsFX) http://glass8.berlios.de

It depends on used theme. Theme in the image skins windows borders only.

It is just the custom theme resource which someone posted here some time ago.

Yes, I will release another RC and maybe final at the end of this week. But it is nice weather here so I will probably more out than near my computer

Yeah, it's almost ready, just need to create installer etc. I did some last changes (mostly fixed bugs reported here and finished symbols downloading to be WinUpdates-proof) and do not intend to modify it more, I'm just not sure whether to risk it and release it directly as it is now or give one more RC to test.

NoelC: I didn't check more but it looks that Win8.1 windows still have a small shadow thus it should not be the problem to increase its intensity via theme resource. Btw, I played a bit, it's a glitchy as hell but: However, the testing versions will be available on invitation only.

I must admit that I don't understand yoour question. Shadow can simply be restored by modifying theme resource but I guess that you mean something different.

I just noticed that the caption is rendered via pure GDI functions SetBkColor->SetTextColor->...->DrawText into intermediate texture. I think that returning glow effect won't be so complicated (DrawText hook etc.) but I'm not sure about the background. I guess that simple changing alpha channel of background will have no effect. It seems you have windowsFX installed which is incompatible with this version of Aero Glass, because it injects into DWM too.

I just can say that achieving simple transparency in Win8.1 is much much easier than in Win8.

Nope, DX11 supports feature levels that ensure backward compatibility. And actually it is Direct2D (which is only user friendly API above D3D 11) used for desktop rendering in Win8.1. Win8 uses this API for Start screen/Store apps only.

Thanks, however I will not care about the preview version now. I need to finish final release for Win8 first.

Actually, I quickly checked the code and it won't be so hard to make the glass working on Win8.1. The only big change (which influences my work) is complete migration of desktop rendering from DX10.1 to DX11 thus I need to rewrite my blur algorithm to Direct3D 11 API (which is very similar to 10.1). The biggest problem I see is the non-existence of glass safety zones which is the thing responsible for extending occluded regions by blur radius. It will make glitches (known from earlier versions of my utility) on the edges of the clip regions without glass safety zone.

But it does, i am testing server 2012 (not R2) since the start and i am using aero glass since about one month. Funny to see by the way a server edition with aero Interesting, so it is just side effect that 2012 server has the same DWM as Win8 RTM has :-) However, if anyone is interested to make this work on R2 too, he can provide dwmcore.dll and udwm.dll and I can see what could be done with that :-)

This utility is not intended for any Windows Server, it is for Windows 8 RTM only. However, themecpl.dll and shell32.dll are not important part for glass, they are for customizing control panel only.