NoelC

Mike, as far as I can tell it continues to run indefinitely. -Noel

Nice, the way you set up the scheduled task to run at bootup. Runs fine, does everything I want in an Aero Glass restoral tool. Well done. After using this for a while I find I don't mind the non-blurred Taskbar. I can see how folks who had found the theme signature bypass feature to their liking might be disappointed. I suggest you consider releasing a separate product to provide that functionality. -Noel

Please read this entire thread (yes, I realize it's long, but I'll bet you can get through it). I'm also betting you'll run across the answer and get the beta software installed and working. If that seems like too much work, or you're not really interested in helping with the testing, maybe just waiting for the release would be a good idea... Keep in mind we've already seen several release candidates. -Noel

Thanks. The side effects of that particular tweak seem worrisome. Of course, it could be un-tweaked after the format is done. I have had no problems whatsoever with the volume that I ReFS-formatted. It just does what a good disk should do. The next really interesting thing will be to see how Windows itself runs from a ReFS-formatted partition, but that's going to have to wait until next version I guess. It's not possible to boot to such a partition today as far as I can see. -Noel

They are there in the beta testing versions BECAUSE they are for beta testing. Perhaps you are not interested in helping with the testing or are not up to doing so. That's fine, no problem. My suggestion in that case: Wait for the release, then donate a few clams to the awesome developer who is, as we speak, making the Windows 8.1 desktop usable again. -Noel

All seems well after a fairly major set of Windows Updates this evening. -Noel

That's good because it logs errors in the Application log from time to time anyways, something about "sync'ing the machine license" going wrong. -Noel

Has anyone actually measured whether there's a difference in power consumption when Aero Glass is enabled vs. disabled? I'm betting it's downright negligible. Microsoft hyped up the removal of Aero Glass by claiming it saves power, but there are still GPU operations all over the place. I doubt it changes the power consumption at all, and I believe their real agenda is motivated by entirely different goals (as in, "How the heck do we sell more software if the desktop already does everything people need?"). -Noel

I found an article on it: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/5803-store-enable-disable-automatic-download-updates-windows-8-a.html And yes, there's a registry entry: [HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsStore\WindowsUpdate] "AutoDownload"=dword:00000002 Remove the AutoDownload value to restore automatic downloads. -Noel Edit: You beat me to it.

I've spent EXTREMELY little time in the Start screen with Windows 8.1 (just time to remove everything, really, since I don't use Metro/Modern and don't want "Apps" using any system resources), but I noticed there is a "Pin to taskbar" entry after right-clicking a tile. Does this not appear for all Apps? -Noel

I don't use and don't want to have anything to do with Metro/Modern Apps. The computer is used for serious work. Additionally, I prefer to have Windows Updates to only run when it's appropriate to update my system, so I have configured Windows Update not to install updates unless I grant explicit permission. But I noticed in the Reliability Monitor events being reported as "Successful Windows Update" for such items as Microsoft.BingHealthAndFitness and Microsoft.WindowsAlarms. Call me a control freak I guess, but my workstation has a function, and as a software engineer I prefer to manage it carefully and not allow Microsoft to do whatever they want whenever they want. Well, It turns out there's a different setting that governs whether Apps are updated automatically. It's settable via the Local Group Policy Editor: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Store Enable the policy to Turn off Automatic Download and install of updates. -Noel

FYI, had a DWM restart without Pandora. I can tell by looking in the Security event log and noting a logoff and immediate log back on of an account by the name of DWM-x (where x is a number). It happened at 2:03 am with the monitors dark; Windows Media Player was playing music. BigMuscle, you can stop worrying that it's your software that's doing it. -Noel

That may well be true. With Windows 7 it would stop playing if the system had been running for more than a couple of weeks without a reboot. I always figured that was some kind of resource exhaustion. Windows 8.1 is pretty new, and every indication is that DWM is restarting on its own - outside BigMuscle's software. As long as it restarts when the monitors are off I have no problem with it doing so. The windows all look fine, including glass effects, when the monitors wake up which implies BigMuscle's startup code is working okay. -Noel

My video card (ATI Radeon HD 7850) and display driver (Catalyst 13.9) seem fine in general terms, though you're quite right - it's possible the particular combination of Adobe Flash (Pandora.com) and my display setup could be at issue. This combo works perfectly for everything else, including such things as Photoshop 3D editing. It does Aero and all the various things I need to do that require GPU acceleration (including run my own software) quite nicely. Before a reboot yesterday it ran flawlessly for 17 days straight - except for the dwm restarts I reported. I paid attention and closed Pandora before allowing the screens to go off last night and all day today and so far there's been no DWM restarts. I think I'm onto something here. Chances seem good that DWM will restart even without BigMuscle's software on the job. I'll try some runs specifically without Aero Glass but with Pandora playing. -Noel

I ran Media Player last night for an hour or so after letting the system go dark. No DWM reset. Of course, just that one sample isn't sufficient to know for sure. That said, I'm more and more liking the theory that having the Pandora.com site playing music while the monitors are off is involved in triggering the restart. -Noel

Had another DWM restart with the monitors in screen-saving power-down mode this morning... This time it logged a couple of messages in the Application event log, which it doesn't always do: Error: The Desktop Window Manager has encountered a fatal error (0x8898008d)Information: The Desktop Window Manager has exited with code (0x8898008d) This was the detail for the Error: Log Name: ApplicationSource: Desktop Window ManagerDate: 12/8/2013 11:16:50 AMEvent ID: 9020Task Category: NoneLevel: ErrorKeywords: ClassicUser: N/AComputer: NoelC4Description:The Desktop Window Manager has encountered a fatal error (0x8898008d)Event Xml:<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"> <System> <Provider Name="Desktop Window Manager" /> <EventID Qualifiers="49152">9020</EventID> <Level>2</Level> <Task>0</Task> <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords> <TimeCreated SystemTime="2013-12-08T16:16:50.000000000Z" /> <EventRecordID>4551</EventRecordID> <Channel>Application</Channel> <Computer>NoelC4</Computer> <Security /> </System> <EventData> <Data>0x8898008d</Data> </EventData></Event>No minidump was created for the above. Here's the section of pertinent Aero Glass debug.log. As you can see, there's no indication there that something went wrong, other than the "Uninstalling..." message. [2013-12-08 09:49:01][Thread 0xABC] Hook (USER32.dll!SetWindowCompositionAttribute from explorer.exe) installed[2013-12-08 09:49:08][Thread 0x2A8] Message 0xC16E, wparam = 13, lparam = 0[2013-12-08 09:49:13][Thread 0x180C] Hook (USER32.dll!SetWindowCompositionAttribute from explorer.exe) installed[2013-12-08 11:16:50][Thread 0x410] Uninstalling...[2013-12-08 11:16:51][Thread 0x1C3C] License file loaded[2013-12-08 11:16:51][Thread 0x1C3C] Machine ID: PHHPCCL3FHOH5LOSDCDNL7MCGVTLO335ITLDP2PQ4LOGYZUQ[2013-12-08 11:16:51][Thread 0x1C3C] Hook (USER32.dll!CreateWindowExW from dwm.exe) installed[2013-12-08 11:16:51][Thread 0x1C3C] Hook (USER32.dll!DrawTextW from udwm.dll) installedThe only additional information I can add is this: In this case, and possibly many/most of the others, I had left the Pandora web site playing music. Pandora's site runs with Adobe Flash. Could flash be doing odd things to the DWM while the monitors are off? Can't say. -Noel

People think of the word design as having some kind of magical meaning - as though everything that's designed must be good. Perhaps we can thank the automobile companies and their well-funded marketing television presence for this. Most folks don't realize that there can be poor designs. A bug might make well-designed software work badly in certain cases. But there's hope because a bug can be fixed. A poorly designed piece of software just does what it does, and it's up to us whether we perceive value in it. Sometimes it's a bit of crap shoot. For example, I tested Windows 8.1 quite thoroughly, including backup and restoral processes, and even exercised some shadow copy access software - all on virtual machines. When I chose to upgrade my workstation to run Windows 8.1 full-time I knew pretty well that it would work, and I had already solved the major "really need that functionality" type issues. But until you use something long-term you really can't find all the little quirks. Traditionally those are small enough that they can be worked-around, and ultimately maybe the design is actually changed and the bugs fixed by Microsoft. That said, I wonder why there have been no Windows Updates for something like 3 weeks... -Noel

I'm with you, but I've been with a couple of big companies in my life and I think it's explainable... Decisions can be made by some people who either have an agenda or don't know what they're doing, and others won't agree with them. This often yields a logic-free result. Think "Dilbert". I've seen it bring big, vibrant companies completely down. It's not healthy. -Noel

Not sure whether all the futzing around with looking at the Shadow Copies (above) through the back door had anything to do with it, but last night my backup failed with this error: The backup operation that started at '‎2013‎-‎12‎-‎08T11:43:23.765618100Z' has failed with following error code '0x8078014B' (There was a failure in creating a directory on the backup storage location.). Please review the event details for a solution, and then rerun the backup operation once the issue is resolved.A reboot solved it (after 17 straight days of near flawless performance), and my backup ran okay after. What makes me wonder whether it was fooling with the Previous Versions panel that broke it was that in the System Protection configuration panel two different lines showing the C: partition showed up; one was set to On and one to Off. The "Off" entry had a different icon - a folder, vs. the normal drive icon. I should have taken a screen grab, but I neglected to do so. After the reboot there's only one entry for C: as there should be: -Noel

Huh, if one opens a File Explorer window to \\Computername\Share, the Previous Versions tab indeed does return. Files from backups are listed as Location: Restore point. I wonder what the logic is in hiding the functionality when on the local disk but not when the very same volume is accessed via a UNC name. In my case it's trivial to access the drives as UNC names as I have shared all the roots anyway. Anyway, thanks. That DOES answer my original question directly, though now that I've had a taste of the possibilities of shadow copy access functions I think I'll still keep watch for a nicely integrated solution that's not too clunky. Blue-skying a bit... I wonder if Microsoft is thinking about ultimately coming out with an operating system for serious users that's based on a Server edition. -Noel

Well, thanks for the tip on ShadowKit, jaclaz... It seems to be a bit clunky too. It doesn't appear to install its own service, which some of the others do - and that's good, but... Whenever I go to export a file, the method of choosing the location is an older, primitive folder selection dialog, and it seems to always create a subfolder (e.g., named "0") to put the files in, requiring some additional operations after the fact. Ideally, a well-integrated shadow copy access tool would put up a dialog similar to Explorer (which ShadowKit does), then just let you drag files out of it to copy them to another Explorer window (ShadowKit does not allow drag), or at least just export them to exactly where you tell it and use a modern "Save As" dialog. So the search is still on for a better tool. -Noel

That's all in BigMuscle's log already, which shows that it definitely restarted. -Noel

Ooh, another possible 3rd party tool to solve this. Love it! Thanks!! -Noel

Nope, not in the folder where DWMGlass.dll is installed anyway... In fact, I just searched my entire system volume with grepWin... No minidump.dmp is to be found anywhere.. There's just no additional information on these restarts to be found anywhere, and from the looks of your log something is just restarting DWM for no known reason. -Noel

Sorry. I wasn't trying to avoid answering specifically... I didn't perceive your question quite right. Yes, I see one big .vhdx file (over 1 TB) and one small one (63 MB) on the backup drive, but not a whole series of them... Yet quite clearly there are multiple backups available there... I don't profess to know how/where it's all managed, but Z-VSSCopy can show me the files in any of my recent backups and also allow me to extract them (one at a time, did I mention it was a bit clunky?). I don't think I'm going to be able to get at multiple different versions of the same file simply by mounting a .vhdx file. The access seems more complex... -Noel