NoelC

Thanks for clarifying. Indeed, I had tried to use the same themeatlas.png that I had originally developed for Win 8, without importing the glow.bmp that I had subsequently developed for Win 8.1. Since the interpretation is different, folks will now have to be clear about whether their themeatlas.png file is for Aero Glass for Win 8 or Aero Glass for Win 8.1. The one I linked in my post just above is for Win 8.1. -Noel

Same here, no paste no how from IE11. I'm able to paste into other forums with IE11, so clearly it's this site. I don't allow the ActiveX to run from this site (and I know it tries to run one because sometimes I see an "Add-on for this website failed to run" message). The site admin needs to update the scripts to work with IE11 without dependence on ActiveX. -Noel

The glow doesn't work as in the previous beta and Aero Glass for Win 8 (.0). By comparison it's squashed vertically using the very same themeatlas.png file that works with the released version. Has the way the background glow field is supposed to be interpreted changed? However, it can be expanded vertically in the theme atlas file to compensate. If you say the theme atlas is now being interpreted in the way that it needs to be for the future, then people will have to change their current themeatlas.png files to accommodate the difference. Not a big deal... http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win81/themeatlas.png -Noel

Glow bitmap is now half the height it should be, and apparently fully opaque or nearly so. This is a new problem with beta 4. Other than that it appears to work okay. -Noel

Minimize the DWM window, and ignore the watermark. This is a beta version and these things have a legitimate reason for being there. IE is the sound one makes when trying to use Internet Explorer on this forum. -Noel

I was trying to quote paul70 above, but I can't get a quote nor paste text with Internet Explorer 11. This forum simply isn't usable as it is. To the forum administrators: IE11 is reality; you need to deal with it, and no, I won't let you run your ActiveX on my system. Paul70, the only reason I would stick with OCZ is that they've clearly kept RAID operation in their minds while designing their SSD internal controllers. I've had absolutely zero glitches with a hard-used RAID array of their SSDs for 19 months. That said, I realize that Sandforce was the primary design influence behind the drives I have, vs. OCZ's own developers for their current Vector models, so I'm not sure my loyalty applies. Perhaps you're right, perhaps past experience doesn't apply. On topic: BigMuscle, does the current (or proposed) implementation of multi-monitor support in Aero Glass for Win8 account for the possibility that different monitors may not have the same dimensions (this may be related to the "rotated monitor" issues having been discussed)? I presently have two matching monitors, but if I were to add a third one it would not be the same size, and I'm just wondering whether I should hope for that to be covered properly by your product. Thanks. -Noel

HOSTS is a plain text file. You need only edit it with a text editor. Even Notepad will do. Entries are in the form: address <whitespace> name -Noel

As far as I know Microsoft's own anti-malware software does not maintain that file (in Windows 8+). Is there commentary inside it that implies otherwise? But I have never had Microsoft Security Essentials on Windows 7, and on Windows 8 / 8.1 I have been off of the included Microsoft security package for a while, preferring instead to run Avast! in all systems. -Noel

BigMuscle, you should take some of the zillions of dollars you'll be getting for Aero Glass for Win 8 and build yourself a nice SSD array. I run from a 2TB RAID 0 array of 4 SSDs. Once you use a system that's this responsive you'll never go back. If I were doing a new setup right now I'd probably get four OCZ Vector drives (mine are older OCZ models, as I built the array in April 2012) and the same PCIe controller card (HighPoint 2720SGL). When I switch my workstation to Windows 8.1 I'll let you know how the machine code works out. Right now I'm only running it in a VM. -Noel

# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.## This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.## This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one# space.## Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.## For example:## 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.# 127.0.0.1 localhost# ::1 localhostYou didn't add all those sites to your hosts file yourself? It's possible you have an anti-malware package that maintains that file. You're probably right not to interfere with that. A stock Microsoft hosts file has the above in it. -Noel

Even better than anti-malware software, replacing your hosts file with one that defines virtually every parasite web domain as pointing to your local home IP address can both keep malware away from your system and also as a bonus kills ads and even keeps sites from tracking you. This is quite possibly the best line of defense against all the bad stuff out there and It's free for everyone's use. -Noel

Here's mine... http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/themeatlas.png This one makes faux rounded corners, especially with dark backgrounds, by using part of the drop shadow to make the edge light. It works with the stock Windows 8 / 8.1 Aero implementation and BigMuscle's Aero Glass for Windows 8 tool. -Noel

For what it's worth, I just upgraded to IE11 on Windows 7 and I can't paste anything into this window either. -Noel

I think it's the same as creating a recovery drive.Except that you can't actually make a DISC with Recovery Drive. Best thing is to keep a bootable Windows 8.1 disc on hand. -Noel

Cottonlane, perhaps you should have waited to upgrade to Windows 8.1 until all the functionality you need is available... Hopefully others will see this and make upgrading their OS the last thing they do after careful planning. Oh, and I would always advise against upgrading, but rather doing whatever it takes to install Windows 8.1 as a full, clean install. This may mean backing up everything to an external drive and wiping your internal storage clean, installing the OS, then installing all your apps. A little extra effort to do this up front will mean a lot more time later where you're not fighting niggling problems. You'll be leaving behind problems with your current system and any incompatibilities that might arise. -Noel

Sounds like you need to look around the (considerable) ClassicShell options some more Soukyuu. Yes, you can disable the start button completely. Thank you to XPclient yet again for the well-written article. I personally like the "Access Normally" search box setting with the "Classic Style" skin. I also like that it works exceedingly well with the ridiculous Microsoft Search Indexer turned off. -Noel

Well, the one big thing it has going for it is that it's current. We simply can't know all the things that have changed under the covers, but very little is changed that matters. I don't presume to know half the internals Andre does, but I actually am a rather experienced software engineer myself who creates and sells Windows applications commercially. I've been doing a quite thorough Return On Investment analysis to determine whether now's the time to bring my company's workstations up to Windows 8.1, and given my recent discovery of a few more 3rd party add-ons that return functionality Microsoft has removed, right now the upgrade column is slightly positive. This of course assumes several development efforts complete with stable releases (e.g., BigMuscle's desktop enhancement). But it's no slam dunk improvement. Basically it just does what it did before but is up-to-date. It gives us opportunity in the longer-term to take advantage of things we might not know about today (e.g., some killer app that shows up in the App Store, though frankly I can't see how anything there could be that killer for serious computer use). At some point we will be moving up to Visual Studio 2013 for development, and that will need Windows 8. -Noel

How? Specifics? Have you found it to actually work better in your own personal experience? I don't buy the hype. I've been testing it quite thoroughly myself. From what I can see it does NOTHING better than Win 7. -Noel

ClassicShell will do that. -Noel

Who implied that? 8.1 isn't really an improvement over 7 in the very same ways 8.0 isn't an improvement. It's an App Delivery System designed by Microsoft to do one thing: Get people to spend money in the App Store. Okay, two things: Run on their tablets, which they hope to sell like hotcakes. Too little, too late, IMO. There's really nothing Windows 8 does for you, outside of the one minor new feature I mentioned above (mounting ISOs) for desktop use. It's clear that not only is Microsoft NOT emphasizing desktop development, but they're actively hobbling it in order to drive us to want something else. Some say it boots up quicker, though in my experience (with SSDs on the job) it's not that big a difference from Win 7. But the 3rd party developers of the world just won't let Microsoft get away with hobbling it - Ivo Beltchev (ClassicShell), Big Muscle (Aero Glass for Win 8), T800 Productions (Folder Options X), Antibody Software (WizMouse), Georg Fischer (ShellFolderFix), Stfan Kueng (Subversion and grepWin), and a whole host of others are making it better again. And I'm very glad for that. -Noel

It's actually better than that... Unbelievably better. There are some really great 3rd party developers out there! Thanks to XPclient for pointing me to another one. With ShadowExplorer I'm just able to access all the backed-up data directly, simply by starting up the application (I'm running the portable version). No VHD mounting required, as long as the backup location is available (e.g., a network location or attached backup drive). Any file in the backup can be exported to a folder location on the running system - in other words this is full file by file and folder by folder access to all the backed up system image data. Better than I'd hoped. This is arguably a better UI than Microsoft's Previous Versions feature, since a file has to exist to bring up Microsoft's UI, but this tool will let you select a file or folder you've deleted and just export it. Thank you, thank you, thank you, XPclient! I believe that's now 100%+ (with plenty of 3rd party augments, of course). -Noel

I have just verified that it's possible to boot from a Windows 8.1 disc and restore a System Image backup to bare metal. It certainly makes you jump through hoops, but the whole system is there when it's done, including all user files. Next steps: To check out the shadow copy / backup data access tools XPclient identified (thanks!). -Noel

Oh, and the one (and quite possibly ONLY) thing I've found to rave about with Windows 8.1 is a feature that Windows 8 introduced: I can mount an ISO file and see into it right from File Explorer. So far that seems to be the only improvement I can find! Microsoft wants us to think Metro/Modern is a big deal, but I just don't see it as such. It's just toys. Other than that, Windows 7 still appears to be every bit as good and in some ways better. -Noel

The problem is this forum software. There have been others (e.g., Adobe's forums) that don't work well with IE11 either, but they're gradually getting fixed. -Noel

Another problem I'm hearing is that it just incessantly copies the same files over and over, whether they've been modified or not. And frankly I don't want to have to run the several other (seemingly unrelated) services (like HomeGroup networking) to be able to run File History. Thanks very much for the info on how to access shadow copies and backups. Just what I was looking for. -Noel