NoelC

Why would you think you could run Aero Glass for Win 8+ on an insider preview build? -Noel

By the way, in the vein of posting discussion-evoking links... Look particularly at the massive collection of negative user sentiment in the comments under this article (to which Jorge posted a link before): https://www.askwoody.com/2016/win7-and-8-1-to-get-cumulative-updates/ Is it because AskWoody.com has attracted people who don't like where Microsoft is going, or is it because Microsoft is simply doing such wrong things that even plankton don't like it? -Noel

Me, I'd put Win 8.1 on it, then tweak the daylights out of it to turn it into a nice system, update it to take most updates up through July or so then set it to take no more updates. These are the ones I hid along the way: KB2976978 - Win 10 Compatibility update for Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 KB3035583 - GWX KB3046480 - Update helps to determine whether to migrate the .NET Framework 1.1 when you upgrade Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 KB3068708 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry KB3080149 - Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry KB3123862 - Updated capabilities to upgrade Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 KB3173040 - Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1 end of free upgrade offer notification After having rebooted because of a new firewall version installation a week ago it's done a week of reasonably intensive work without any problems whatsoever. -Noel

Absolute screen position doesn't seem to matter, but here's where it is on a 1920 x 1200 display: http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/14393/NotepadToReproduce.jpg Here are the Window metrics I use to make the title bars the size they are. http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/14393/SetWindowMetrics.reg Here are the AeroGlassGUI settings: -Noel

I did provide that, but to make it even more clear here's what I'd try if I were you: 1. Use your AeroGlassGUI tool to invoke my RoundedCornersNoExtraColor.png theme atlas. 2. Open the above image in a viewer at 100% size. 3. Open Notepad and position it exactly over the top to get the same size. 4. Type in 10 lines of text. 5. Note while typing the 9th, 10th or 11th lines that the glitch occurs at the lower-right edge like I showed above. -Noel

Thanks, but I find I need the blur to make the window titles readable. I actually like the titles. I am imagining that Big Muscle could separate the blur amount into a separate setting and just ignore what the system is doing with it. -Noel

Dog? Pfftt. Anyone besides me sense the need to create a whole new line of 3D digital pets? Tamagotchi, eat your heart out! -Noel

I agree that *perfectly* integrated looking is best, but you might be hoping for a bit too much integration at this stage. This is, after all, Windows 10 we're talking about. I worked a while to get the Start menu color (configurable in Classic Shell's Settings, Menu Look tab) to more or less match the Taskbar and active window border color (configurable in the old C:\Windows\System32\control.exe /NAME Microsoft.Personalization /PAGE pageColorization control panel applet) and title blur radius (configurable in the AeroGlassGUI.exe tool) to match the blur of the Taskbar and Notifications panel. It's not a perfect match but at least it's not utterly offensive to the eye. -Noel

I saw a screen painting glitch... Note the lower-right edge of the Notepad window... It would change when I would type characters. I can easily reproduce this with Notepad sized as above and typing enough lines into it to be working near the bottom. I specifically reproduced it by opening a new Notepad window and at exactly 11:22:00 a glitch showed up. Doesn't look like anything specific was written to the debug.log at exactly the time of the glitch. [2016-08-17 09:41:38][0x3C0:0x178] Allocating blur buffer 1920 x 1152 [pixelFormat: 87, 3] (D2D 0x000001F4EDE3AD20) [2016-08-17 11:19:34][0x3C0:0x3C4] Message 0xC1C4, wparam = 0, lparam = 0 [2016-08-17 11:19:45][0x3C0:0x3C4] Message 0xC1DE, wparam = 269484032, lparam = 1 [2016-08-17 11:19:45][0x3C0:0x3C4] Message 0xC1DE, wparam = 269484032, lparam = 2 [2016-08-17 11:19:47][0x3C0:0x3C4] Message 0xC1E3, wparam = 0, lparam = 0 [2016-08-17 11:22:06][0x3C0:0x3C4] Message 0xC239, wparam = 2, lparam = 0 -Noel

No keyboard in sight. Conclusion: This person does no real work. Yet another no load. Society will collapse if even the people who think pushing a few things around is real work then take virtual vacations instead of doing what little they do. Need to create a new line of "drool proof" shirts. -Noel

In other words: 1) FUD 2) FUD 3) A fate superior to having to run Windows 10. In all seriousness, this lack of documentation - along with absolute proof (GWX, long update cycles) that Microsoft does use the Windows Update foot in the door to do whatever they want to further their own business goals - are what made me swear off of accepting any more updates to 7. Remember, we've switched to the model where Microsoft makes changes then has users test them immediately thereafter. Even the flagship software is only tested a little. I was looking in Windows\System32 and it looks like the final build of 14393 was done literally on July 15 - two weeks before it was unleashed on the public. I count that as a mere 2 weeks of having other users test it. Do we suspect Microsoft of testing patches to the OLD operating systems more than the only one that matters to them now? Are you sure they haven't put things in you don't want? Even if you attribute only noble intentions to the programmer, did he/she get it right? Why do they want to force all updates into a "cumulative" package? Did we already avoid something they desperately want us to have? Or are we about to do so? If you'd told me a couple of years ago whether I would be advising people to consider avoiding Windows Updates I'd have told you that you were nuts. But observed reality has to trump a lifetime of training. By the way, if you may be thinking that going ahead and installing Windows 10 might be a better alternative than all this paddling upstream against the Microsoft current to run an older system, the best I've been able to achieve so far with Big Muscle's prototype Windows 10 build 14393-aware Aero Glass for Win 8+ tool is a partially broken installation that reverts the amount translucency the user has set up (to be nearly opaque) every time it's booted (not to mention showing some occasional painting glitches). Windows 10 is clearly actively being made less and less capable of being tweaked into usability. It's possible Big Muscle may be able to overcome this. But that leaves me with a Win 10 system that, despite all my tweaks, still runs about 6 more processes than build 10586 to support an idle desktop and tries to contact msdl.microsoft.com. I'm personally still running 8.1 on my actual hardware, and don't have plans to change that even though I'm pretty familiar now with the Anniversary Update... -Noel

>Now I KNOW MS has gone off the deep end! You are a master of understatement. -Noel

So we are, after all, more of a mind than not. The best we can do is to try to sort out the signal from the noise, and share experiences of course. -Noel

InvicTech, I know your question is to Big Muscle, but I have a suggestion: Try installing Classic Shell. It facilitates adding blur to Taskbar and Notifications panel... -Noel

It's something I've thought of, certainly. It's not hard to imagine that the VMware people could pass more requests directly through from a like OS to another like OS. Really what's needed is to run different OSs on the exact same hardware. In small part I've done that. Over the past years I've had both Win 7 and 8.1 on my workstation. I've also set up, for testing, Win 7 and 10 on my other system, a small dual core server system (Dell PowerEdge T20). Observations: I get about as good an experience from my Win 8.1 setup as I got from Win 7 on the same workstation. A few numbers are worse and a few numbers are better in benchmarks on both sides of the OS change, and performance keeps up with my needs. Overall I'd say I've gotten a bit more value from Win 8.1. On the PowerEdge I measured a definite performance degradation in most areas when running Win 10 (build 10240)as compared to Win 7. As I recall I even did a video test on that system, and saw about 10 degrees C higher temperatures when playing the same video in Win 10 vs. 7. I haven't tried a later version of Win 10 on it because frankly the thing does its job with Win 7. Perfectly stable, long-term - running for months at a time between reboots. I have a fair bit of spare time because I don't spend much of it futzing with my main OS ("it just works"), but blithely installing each different OS on the same hardware to satisify curiosity about "what's better" (or having multiple identical systems side by side) is beyond even my threshold for the moment. -Noel

Not surprising - it comes from applying a level of understanding and care to setting up and running one's computing environment. You are one of a very few of us who actually think. I'd say that folks here at MSFN try to think more than usual and at a higher level. But bear in mind that most people don't experience - or expect - that same level of reliability. Have a debate some time (and I'm sure you have, already) with a person who's convinced that it's necessary to reinstall Windows every few months. Such sentiment is why Microsoft feels they can get away with forcing a reinstall of Windows (not to mention reverting user settings) every 6 months. The number of folks who don't trash their OS in that amount of time is miniscule. I'm sure Microsoft feels that this will improve the computing lives of the majority of people. It's a matter of philosophy and approach to life. I'll bet you drive your cars for longer than the payments last too. In my garage/driveway: One that's 7 years old, one that's 10 years old, one that's 19 years old, and one that's 34 years old. -Noel

It's probably something special about how I have removed the Apps and App support that changes the timing of the system startup for me. No matter, the delay is a fine "set it and forget it" workaround for me. It doesn't cause any additional visible startup delay. Thanks for the nice feedback on RoundedCorners. Here is a combination of colorless border graphics with the same .layout file... I really haven't had time to test it or refine it any. Let me know if you see something that can be improved. http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/14393/RoundedCornersNoExtraColor.zip -Noel

In order to try to overcome the hype and FUD, try this: Ask yourself, when considering whether you NEED further updates... Am I experiencing ongoing bugs Microsoft needs to fix? Am I regularly subjected to malware attacks? Do I trust Microsoft's programmers to only make my system only better, without introducing new problems? The only way you can see how long your older Windows system will run without error is to avoid updates and the attendant reboots. -Noel

You could look at Big Muscle's current .layout file that he ships with his current beta for the Anniversary build. That's what I did to create this: Theme atlas PNG and associated .layout file: http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/14393/RoundedCorners.zip -Noel

OK, here's what I did: Started Process Hacker 2, then played this 5 minute UHD 60 FPS video from YouTube via Internet Explorer in full screen mode, which filled the 1920 x 1200 desktop displayed in the VMware window. The video looked pretty good in all cases. There were the most visibly dropped frames, best judged during smooth panning or smooth movement of the camera, in the Win 10 playback. Win 7 was better, but still a little stop-start was visible during smooth movement. Somehow the distance of the jerks was smaller or something in Win 7 than in 10, because it wasn't as intrusive. By contrast I found the Windows 8.1 playback smoothest. The image quality seemed a bit better (cleaner/smoother/better interpolated) in the Win 8.1 and 10 VMs than in Win 7. Here are the graphs for the various resources monitored during the playback... Win 7: Judge image quality: Various Resource graphs: Win 8.1: Judge image quality: Various Resource graphs: Win 10: Judge image quality: Various Resource graphs: -Noel

The only thing I can offer to explain the differences between Win 7's Disk Mark test and that of the other VMs is that the Win 7 VM is set up with a virtual SCSI controller while the others have a virtual IDE controller. Perhaps that has influenced PassMark's test. I do trust those graphs in the Advanced Disk test, though. THEY mirror very well what it feels like when one actually uses the file system to do real things. I can believe that the kernel tries to step out of the way more in the newer systems, e.g., the runs between interrupts might be longer and thus CPU-intensive activities run longer without the system going off and doing something else. And I could easily believe that the Windows 8 and 10 desktops are negatively affected because of all the BS Microsoft has added to be able to handle Metro / Modern / Universal Apps. I can't explain the disparity in the Memory Mark test. But what you see is what I saw, and you'd be right to doubt the consistency of the testing based on just those results. I'm open to suggestions for gathering more "real world" test data. Maybe I should copy a big video file to the TEMP area, play it, and track CPU usage? -Noel

It's possible to make 8.1 into a worthwhile desktop-centric system. That takes a little of the pressure off since Mainstream support doesn't end until January 9, 2018, with extended support going out to January 10, 2023. -Noel

That is the question - where the hell are all the different colors stored, and wouldn't it be awesome if we could work out one way to adjust them all that creates and maintains a consistent, unified desktop coloration. Oh to have the time The only thing that I haven't got visually integrated right now is to get all the colors that make up the title bar on the Settings App don't match (not that I use it much). The others I've got pretty well set up so that they look good without much transparency. -Noel

In my case the frames are coming up nearly opaque at startup, as shown here... It's not bad, because my RoundedCorners theme atlas looks okay opaque. I could get used to it, though it's a shame that the opacity setting is being overridden. I don't get UAC prompts at all, so I don't know whether UAC causes a change. If I drag the Color balance slider to the right and Opacity slider to the left, I get the translucency back. This reveals the problem with ribbon-enabled windows. When I tried enabling UxThemeSignatureBypass (and rebooted), the caption stayed white, but the background glow on ribbon-enabled windows just went screwy... Ribbon-enabled windows are okay, I guess, though not as good as before, without UxThemeSignatureBypass support. The text when the window is in the foreground is nice and white (as you can see in the first image above), but the background is not shaded - which isn't a big deal with nearly opaque borders. Regarding startup... The starting delay works around the failure to start problem for me - after about 10 restarts I can say it seems to start reliably for me at bootup. You might want to note that in the documentation if anyone else runs into the same problem. Or just build a small delay into the installer-created Task Scheduler entry for everyone. I'm not surprised Microsoft has been throwing even more monkey wrenches in your way. They have no interest in supporting our desire to improve the desktop appearance. They want us using THEIR UI setup and none other. They apparently have no interest in Windows having a future. -Noel

While I agree with the sentiment, and I think it's not something that should just be blithely accepted, has Joel been under a different impression for the past 3 years? Anyone with an IQ of 67 or higher recognized that Microsoft is trying to take over and assert control over everything eons ago. It can't be allowed. Just avoid using Windows 10 for ANYTHING Microsoft wants you to do with it. That WILL solve everything. -Noel