NoelC

I'm sorry to say that you are in this case. The registry values he clearly lays out in the first post, under Build #639 as you noted, are not in your registry screen grab above. How is that not obvious to you? I sincerely hope you get it working, but I really have to apologize to Big Muscle and everyone else for this conversation having gone on so long. -Noel

A direct link... Not clear what it installs in place of said unwanted software, though. There has to be something... GWXI maybe? Remove software related to the Windows 10 free upgrade offer -Noel

And now this: Remove software related to the Windows 10 free upgrade offer The question is: What new, unwanted things does it install? -Noel

It's 2 pages back, and only 19 hours old. -Noel

There are several registry values that control opacity and color, and they are different from prior versions of Aero Glass since Big Muscle noticed Windows mucking about with the old settings. I can only advise to look back in this thread for the values (and in the post I made with the spoiler showing my reg entries); I don't remember all the names right now. I set them to my preferences when Big Muscle posted the names, and just left them set. I presume at some future point he'll update his Aero Glass GUI Configuration Tool. -Noel

It's good to know a tweaking application has discovered the secret - that says there IS a way to do it. Thanks for the info, qwerty12. System Protection still functions, so I'm not sure a rename of SystemSettings.exe will stick. It's worth a try, though, just to see if anything gets logged. Edit: Got "Access is denied" errors trying to rename C:\Windows\ImmersiveControlPanel\SystemSettings.exe even in a CMD window running as SYSTEM. Then when taking ownership and changing permissions, a pop-up "You are about to change the permission settings on system folders. This can reduce the security of your computer and cause users to have problems accessing files. Do you want to continue?" It fought me a while longer, but I prevailed. SystemSittings.exe it now is. The 5 minute wait has begun. Edit 2: LOL, ApplicationFrameHost.exe started after 5 minutes, but of course not SystemSettings.exe, which did not exist. I guess this warrants a similar trial with ApplicationFrameHost.exe. This was logged in the System Event Log when SystemSettings.exe was not able to be started: Unable to start a DCOM Server: microsoft.windows.immersivecontrolpanel as Unavailable/Unavailable. The error: "2" Happened while starting this command: "C:\WINDOWS\ImmersiveControlPanel\SystemSettings.exe" -ServerName:microsoft.windows.immersivecontrolpanel Edit 3: Renaming ApplicationFrameHost.exe to ApplicationFrameHosed.exe sure enough stopped the autostart of SystemSettings.exe, but didn't log any informative error messages. It's also not a reasonable workaround because that basically prevents Settings from being run at all. I also experimented with blocking the "TelemetryHelper" - %SystemRoot%\ImmersiveControlPanel\Telemetry.Desktop.dll - several different ways on the theory that maybe something's trying to start telemetry operations 5 minutes after bootup, and that didn't net any useful results. Basically it caused the Settings App to hang on startup. So given what's been learned here, the question begins to crystallize... From what list do DCOM servers get started? I'll be fooling around with this registry key next... HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Extensions\ContractId\Windows.BackgroundTasks Edit 4: Fooling with that key didn't help the problem. But it DID reveal that there's yet another monkey wrench being thrown in the system by Microsoft: I couldn't actually restore the default content of that key. And I do know how to set registry permissions, and how to temporarily stop Windows Defender. -Noel

Yes, 669 eliminates the watermark if you have a donation.key. That's a difference between pre-release test software and released software. You don't need to do a full reboot to get it to try to download symbols. Just log off/on. I believe specifically this is the file needed for a fully updated Windows 10 system: C:\AeroGlass\symbols\dwmcore.pdb\B1CDF66E2CCF404999E11ECAF32FA6381\dwmcore.pdb You seem to want answers to a lot of things before you try to make it work yourself. Go try them. Get your feet wet. See for yourself how things work by experimenting. Make a system backup, a copy of the AeroGlass folder, and export pertinent registry keys before you make changes so you can always get back to a known state. If you don't know how to do these things, research them until you do know. It's information that will always benefit you, and before you know it you'll be giving advice on how to get things working. -Noel

I completely disagree, MrGRiM. A work PC needs to be pleasant to use. Personally I'd resent any employer who forced me to look at a stock Win 8 or 10 desktop and wouldn't allow me to improve it. And this software is perfectly stable. I haven't had a single glitch with it on my Win 8.1 work workstation in years of hard use, and that's no exaggeration. -Noel

Thank you, Big Muscle. It seems to work on my Win 8.1 test VM. I'll be moving it to my main workstation soon. The old Aero Glass GUI configuration tool still seems to work with it, so I guess you didn't change it to use the alternate registry values for color and translucency that you're using for version 1.5. Edit: After almost a full day of testing and hard use on a 3 monitor Win 8.1 x64 Pro/MCE system, I'm happy to report that 1.4.6 has been flawless. -Noel

Yes, there are current symbols, and yes, they will get rid of the compatibility message. I have no watermark. And of course the non-debug version is needed not to see a debug console window (described inaccurately as a "DOS box"). Bear in mind that Microsoft's symbol servers seem to be almost constantly overloaded, and thus the process of loading symbols is at best unreliable. It took my system several tries before the symbols finally just loaded. -Noel

That would be a hoot. I wonder whether a significant number of users would pay e.g., $0.99 for an App that purports to give them back control... Thing is, Microsoft would take a big percentage of that profit, and I won't be rewarding them for any of this Metro/Modern/Universal s***. -Noel

I'd love to learn something from this exercise - like how to stop this system behavior of running an App I don't want running in the first place. ApplicationFrameHost.exe and SystemSettings.exe are the newly started processes left running after the 5 minute mark. And the system has to be completely idle for them to run; if I even move the mouse it delays the start, so actively saving a process list will prevent it from happening. The best I could do with that limitation is to save a list from 5 minutes before and directly after. I can, however, easily get screen grabs of the process list that bracket the occurrence by setting up a timed, regular screen grab with IrfanView. Here are before and after screen grabs: Is there something more specific you would you want to look for? Maybe I can find a way to capture it. From what I know, ApplicationFrameHost is a wrapper that facilitates Apps to run on the desktop. SystemSettings.exe is of course the Settings App itself, which is the only App I have on this system. I don't know what starts it. If it's a scheduled job, I haven't found it yet, and bear in mind I've already disabled a LOT of needless scheduled jobs. Since the Settings App starts up virtually instantly whether it's running yet or not, it seems to me it's no more than a waste of resources to start it ahead of time - presumably because a suspended App takes less time to come up than one that's not running at all - and I don't care how "suspended" it is, there are two processes in the process list that don't need to be there. SOMETHING is surely being used, and if nothing else the process list is just that much more difficult to scan visually. Chances are would go for days or weeks without running the Settings App. Pretty much the only times would be when every few weeks I would choose to install updates. I had build 10586 down to where it would settle to 42 processes to support an idle desktop and deliver all the functionality I expect. There are 4 or 5 more processes now with build 14393, yet as far as I can see it's no more responsive, and delivers no more functionality. Edit: If I terminate ApplicationFrameHost/SystemSettings/conhost, they will come back again after 5 more minutes of inactivity. -Noel

Oops - thanks for letting me know. I've just corrected it. -Noel

Those of you wishing for a turnkey solution *could* just take the time and put in the effort to become more knowledgeable - by I don't know, maybe READING - so as to be able to install the software and test it yourself. It's pretty clear others did their reading and are getting Aero Glass to function. It's not really rocket science, and goes something like this: The set of pertinent files is copied to your computer in e.g., the C:\AeroGlass folder. An entry is added to the Task Scheduler, run as SYSTEM, that starts aerohost.exe at bootup. Values in the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM affect the colors/transparency and whether an alternate theme atlas of window border composition graphics is used. Some sets of those values have been published in this very thread. The improvement in usability that Aero Glass for Win 8+ brings to Windows 10 cannot be overstated. It does a lot to help overcome the urge to do a screenshot... -Noel

Hm, there are no Apps on this system except Settings, and sure enough it appears in the "Let apps run in the background" list. I've never noticed it there before, nor would I have expected that it would need to run in the background. Now it's Off: Testing now... I have to leave the system completely alone for at least 5 minutes... Edit: Nope. SystemSettings.exe started exactly 5 minutes after I booted the machine anyway. I am not surprised. Thanks for trying to help, zolotron. -Noel

Isn't it a great feeling? Keep doing it, and you'll come to crave it. Soon you'll start to experience actual pain when you try to think, and especially when you try to not spend money at the App Store... --- Okay, in all seriousness, why is the "Metered Connection Trick" still a thing? There is a direct way, after all... Run gpedit.msc. Navigate into Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update. Set the Configure Automatic Updates entry to Disabled. As an alternative if you don't have gpedit.msc, my little application tweaks the registry setting. -Noel

Speaking of sharing experiences, out of curiosity what's your Up Time, Jaclaz? My two hardware systems: Win 7: Win 8.1: -Noel

I personally would not choose to use any kind of hybrid shutdown or power saving mode myself. It's never been a solid, trouble-free feature of Windows, and a full shutdown / bootup simply doesn't take that long. That said, the above certainly doesn't apply to RDP connections. The entries from your debug.log in the AeroGlass directory around the times of the failures would, I'm sure, be interesting for Big Muscle to see to try to investigate further. -Noel

Seems to me the bigger point is this: If all the updates are delivered, as they have been, in separate, distinct small packages, they HAVE to be made to be modular by the programmers. I.e., they're expected to stand alone so the code is written that way. If the programmers just know that the users are just going to get the whole system they're working on, through cumulative updates, they can make changes all over the place - changes that ALL have to be there to be sensible. Software does NOT make itself modular! So no, there will be no "picking apart the roll-ups" after they get going with this. The only way it can possibly work is that if you want any updates you'll need them all, so that you have exactly the same code base they're working on. Perhaps Microsoft's programmers think that all the work to keep parts of the system modular is all wasted effort, and they'd be more productive if only they could be allowed to "have at it" and change everything at will. All I can say is "good luck with that". -Noel

I don't think that's fundamentally new ground for them. They're the keymasters. They get to choose when to call software "incompatible". They also run such things as SmartScreen and create the data that Windows Defender runs on. What more evidence do we need than what they have already done with Classic Shell (several times)? Sure, it was "incompatible"... Incompatible with their plan to make money from the tiles in their Start Menu! Whenever I release new software my potential customers, in order to try it, have to push through prompts that say things like "This software could harm your computer. Do you really want to continue?" It's no less than monopolistic anticompetitive behavior if you ask me. But the Justice Department is apparently all paid off. -Noel

To me it's all about trust. As in, "I don't ... Microsoft". Do you really trust that they won't load something onto your system even though you have it set to "check for updates but let me choose when and whether to install them"? -Noel

I may be a little more apt than most to say "just stop updating" as a response to all the Microsoft BS and FUD, because in my situation I have online security covered a whole bunch of ways - and I know that not everyone else does. Woody's recommendations to keep up with security updates may well be the right ones for general use, where you might be visiting web pages or running online applications that seek to infect you. At this point *I* personally have not updated my Win 7 machine, which performs primarily as a server, since May. I don't web surf on that machine nor run much interactive software, and even if I did it's protected in a number of ways. It's stable - it just runs and runs without fault between reboots initiated by installs or whatever (38 days at the moment) - so I'm not working around any bugs I'd like to see fixed. In short, I'm not inclined to break what works very, very well. I've updated my Win 8.1 workstation, which I use interactively all the time, more recently, though not in the past few months. It too is stable as a rock, and I do actually surf some with it, so even with all the extra online security layers on task I've been thinking about bring it up to date. I haven't seen any update speed issues with Win 8.1 so far, so I presume that if I were to choose to enable and run Windows Update it would deliver Microsoft's latest in just a few minutes. In fact, I've actually tested a Win 8.1 virtual machine with this month's updates and found it to be stable and no more apt to spill the beans online than before. All that being said, right now if you want to keep your older Windows system up to date, I suggest - as dencorso has stated above - disabling the Windows Update service in between the times you choose to update your system, then (assuming Windows 7 or earlier) being prepared to have it loop hard for up to a whole day or longer to get the list of available updates. For example, start the service and initiate the check on Friday evening then look for results some time on the weekend. Yes, it really is taking some systems that long! And make sure the system's cooling is up to par - the CPU will get hot. Microsoft is clearly making it painful to get to the completion of Windows Update. It's simply no longer in their interest to keep your older Windows computing experience pleasant and easy to manage, so I don't anticipate changes for the better any time soon. And if you feel the urge to follow them down their current rabbit hole just to keep "up to date" for "security reasons", just remember who put in those security problems in the first place, and imagine there's no reason to think they're not putting in just as many new ones now... There's a sentiment that "all updates are perfect" - i.e., that they only solve problems and you want them. We've been strongly conditioned over decades to think this way. Thing is, Microsoft is the company that programmed-in all those problems in the first place, yet here we are after applying Windows 7 updates for some 7 years somehow we still DESPERATELY NEED the month's patches. Don't assume that patches somehow get a magic pass that allows them to only be perfect. There's no guarantee they're not breaking two things for every one they fix. In fact, today's Microsoft is all about shipping whatever the programmers come up to customers in just a few days!! And nothing says that even if patches work right they will keep your performance up. They could do many things in the name of "security", not all necessarily good, yet somehow virtually everyone would say without thinking that "more security is better". There's too much unsaid there, and details matter! If you choose to keep an older Windows system, don't expect "business as usual". Be prepared to take more responsibility for your system maintenance and security, and be prepared to learn to manage it differently (more carefully, better). -Noel

Wuauserv is the Windows Update service itself. One has to wonder, why do you still have it enabled? On Win 7 (and older?) the Windows Update service is still known to go into a loooong bout of CPU usage whenever Microsoft releases new updates. Every month people claim there are things that will fix it, but it's just a matter of Windows Update completing more quickly when the updates have all gone in. See also: https://www.askwoody.com/2016/when-does-the-win7-scan-for-updates-head-south/ -Noel

My RoundedCorners theme atlas has a baked-in blue color. A while back I made an alternative one without that... http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/14393/RoundedCornersNoExtraColor.zip -Noel

The first post in this thread, under the Build #639 documentation, clearly identifies the registry values that you need to manipulate. -Noel