NoelC

I appreciate the grounding, jaclaz, but I'm aware that I bought a high-end system for its day. Kosamja's result goes to show my system, while decent for its day, now isn't really "cutting edge" any more, even with a healthy set of resources. Looking into the Windows startup a bit more closely, and breaking things down starting with the time of virtual power-on: Win 10: 0:00 - Virtual power-on 0:03 - Virtual BIOS window shows 0:04 - 5 Second "Choose an Operating System to Start" countdown because of custom boot option shows 0:09 - Windows logo shows with spinner 0:22 - Screen mode shifts to full-size 0:28 - Windows lock screen shows 0:33 - Password accepted, "Preparing Windows" shows 0:42 - Desktop shows The above would imply that the parts under Windows' control are really between 0:10 and 0:27, then again between 0:33 and 0:42, with possibly that some things starting up in the background between 0:27 and 0:33 while I was entering the password. Note that SuperFetch is Disabled on this system. Time for a reboot, from desktop to lock screen: 0:00 - Choose Restart, screen shows Shutting Down 0:06 - Shutdown complete, screen goes black, enters virtual power-up sequence 0:09 - Virtual BIOS window shows 0:10 - 5 Second "Choose an Operating System to Start" countdown because of custom boot option shows 0:14 - Windows logo shows with spinner 0:23 - Screen mode shifts to full-size 0:28 - Windows lock screen shows 0:30 - Password accepted, "Preparing Windows" shows 0:35 - Logged-in, desktop shows Several steps during a startup after a reboot are a little shorter than when doing an initial power-up even though I've disabled the Fast Boot option entirely. I find that interesting. -Noel

Wow, I had no idea folks were waiting literally minutes for Win 10 startup... As a comparative reference: On my (now aging) workstation with virtual machines hosted on a 4 SSD array, if I start VMware Workstation cold, select the tab for my Win 10 v1703 VM, press the > (play) button, see VMware go through the startup including a 5 second wait for F8, then Windows 10 presents the lock screen, click and enter password, hit return, system logs in and presents an empty desktop: Time: 42 seconds. What's interesting is that if I do the same sequence for a Win 7 VM the time is: 42 seconds. Remember how we were told over and over that Win 10 is SO much faster than its predecessors? -Noel

So... Here we are, a few years after the first release of Win 10, and a few more after the release of Win 8, and Aero Glass has become all but unsupported, with a few of us struggling to retheme Win 10 to make it usable and often failing (I don't consider a system where DWM crashes if you do things acceptable)... I can't say I blame Big Muscle for losing interest. I doubt he gets many more donations, and frankly fighting against every release Microsoft makes has got to be getting old for him... Is it time to call Aero Glass for Win 8+ a Lost Cause with Win 10? Sure was nice while it worked, and of course those of us keeping our hardware systems on older OS versions have a bit more life to live, but even those are time-limited. -Noel

Exactly what my re-tweaker script does. Problem is, do it - forcibly remove those Apps - and the system becomes un-updateable thereafter. That's new with v1703 "Creator's". They've finally reached a level where the "inbox" Apps must remain installed or the system just flat refuses to update. That being said, it IS possible to disable much of the App infrastructure and tweak the system so that it remains private (I've finally accomplished it) AND have the system remain willing to accept a Windows Update. That just means more gigabytes of wasted disk space then. But I can see we're heading for a brick wall straight ahead. Once it gets to the point where we get to "don't touch it at all or it will just stop working", I believe I will just stop trying. I don't use Android or macOS at all now because I have no use for them, and Windows becoming that touchy just seals that deal for it as well. It will be the ultimate indication that Microsoft has gone where I cannot follow. -Noel

Thanks for confirming what I thought. The Springfield Tire Fire seems more stylish than Windows 10's (lack of) theme. The worst of it is that most folks don't have an understanding that the visual styles on controls helped make them easier to use. As one who sits in front of my workstation all day and well into the night I certain sense a difference. -Noel

Thanks. I knew about that (that tweak is on AskVG or similar). At this point, having gotten used to the new organization, it doesn't really matter whether the services are hosted one per process or multiples, and frankly seeing them as mostly separate processes tends to spur me on to try to trim more. Chances are, since the split-up is mainstream now, it'll probably run better in this form. Certainly it has more beta testers users running it this way now. I stand firm in my conviction that Microsoft is among the best managers of mediocrity on the planet now... Note that the June patches to the older operating systems are breaking things for people far and wide (who'd want to print from Internet Explorer, or search for things in Outlook?). -Noel

Got a tweaked Win 10 v1703 build 15063.413 down to 66 processes and 1.3 GB of RAM to host an empty desktop. It's now utterly silent online unless I do something that initiates communications. That took heroics; when I started it was at over 100 processes. I updated a tweaked Win 7 VM earlier today and glanced at Process Hacker while I was in there. 38 processes. That took a lot less effort than wrangling Win 10. Win 8.1: 42 processes. More effort than Win 7, but not nearly as much as 10. In Win 10 v1703 now almost all the svchost.exe wrappers are now hosting just one service. I can't measure or sense an improvement in performance because of this - and I've tried. They claim it'll make a system that has crashing services more stable. I haven't had services crash in a very long time. Justification? "Most computers have more than enough RAM now". Yeah, THAT's a good reason to make something more wasteful for no practical benefit. NOT! Maybe we have more RAM because we need to do more work with our computers. I keep trying and trying to find a way to want to adopt the latest Windows for my workstation and they keep working and working to ensure I just can't love it - or even like it. -Noel

I've finally figured out what it takes to get Win 10 v1703 to successfully update - no thanks to anything resembling a readable error message in CBS.log. Through restoral of snapshots and trial and error, I finally got to where I could bring it up to 15063.413 by doing all my re-tweaks EXCEPT removing all the Apps that one has to bend over backward to remove. Looking at CBS.log, the most I could find is some kind of cryptic error mentioning not being able to update the AppX subsystem, which I suppose is a clue, but certainly not a very good one. I don't see any obvious problems with Aero Glass after the update. But as carlitosoo555 mentioned, I'm not really doing anything with Apps still, and frankly I'm not doing all that much with Win 10 in general. -Noel Edit: I've just had a DWM crash with version 15063.413. I was moving the right edge of an Internet Explorer window around to try to take a screen grab. Yep, it seems reproducible. This might be because I'm using an old theme not made for v1703. Sigh.

Unfortunately that doesn't sound like "works well" really... Where did you get 15063.413? Is it already being delivered by Windows Update? I'm still trying to figure out whether my tweaked system will actually take the next update. If it won't via normal Windows Update I guess I'll try going through the catalog if the update shows up there. I'll add my 2 cents on Aero Glass if and when I get it updated. If updates are going to break and re-break Aero Glass for Win 8+, that says to me: It's a constant uphill battle to fight Microsoft's wishes. I suspect Big Muscle has been considering whether it's worth trying to fight that battle. I know *I'm* getting tired of the constant flux. If I can't make Win 10 look the way I want (and it's already true that some things just refuse to behave), I really am not going to delay adopting it as long as humanly possible. "You have to have it our way or else" leaves me with a deep resentment of Microsoft. -Noel

I don't remember where I got UxTSB.dll. All I can suggest is to try to match the size/date on the files I'm showing in my screen grab. The set of files I have do seem to all work together nicely for Win 10 v1703. -Noel

Win 8.1 also seems a bit more efficient/interactive at some desktop windowing things, w/regard to multitasking. Echoing the comments above, I've judged my well-tweaked Win 8.1 to be overall better than the best tweaked Win 7 I ever had (I use my workstation every day all day). Even though Win 8 had already started down the road to ruin with the Metro/Modern side, you can still entirely avoid that stuff and it's fine as a desktop system. NOT like the latest Win 10 v1703, which is starting to become dangerously tied to its UWP side. And the best part? A permanently activated, stable Win 8 is not likely to be changed for the worse by Microsoft. While it hasn't been necessary so far, you could always avoid further updates if it comes down to it. You're still in control. While I surely would have liked to see Microsoft remain on the straight and narrow with Win 10, at least I can live with 8.1 for a fair bit longer. -Noel

Hm, interesting. I'm not seeing that issue, at least not as much. Is it because I've lowered the height of the title bars to 15 (e.g., via WinAero Tweaker) and my icons are smaller? Something to do with the particular theme I've chosen? Note by comparison: -Noel

It's not UxThemeSignatureBypass64.dll that you want to use with Win 10 v1703 and this newest version of Aero Glass for Win 8+. It's UxTSB.dll. See the details in the list of files I'm showing in my screen grab a few posts back. -Noel

With UxTSB.dll in the AeroGlass directory and DWMGlass.dll registered, voila... This is an Aero7 theme I've had for a while. Note the rounded buttons. -Noel

Thanks for the update, Big Muscle. Seems to work just fine here. Out of curiosity, what's been fixed since 1.5.4.879 to make 1.5.4.904? The only thing I've noticed so far is that the Settings App doesn't seem to mess up its title bar any more (it's the only App I have). -Noel

My problem of late is that with v1703 heavily tweaked it just refuses to do a Windows Update any more. I even tried a full, fresh install. It's so sensitive to tweaking that almost anything causes Windows Update to just fail. I was even seeing failures when I would try to install an update directly from the Catalog. I tried to tiptoe around that - for about 1 whole day - then I got frustrated and just tweaked the hell out of it. The only error logged is that I don't allow luafv (the file virtualization part of UAC) to start via the EnableLUA setting in the registry. And it never, ever contacts anyone online on its own. Microsoft is going to cause me to just lose interest entirely if they keep this kind of garbage up. I don't need an OS where Windows Update just raises the white flag if you look at it funny. I'm down to about 68 processes total to support an idle desktop, 9 of which are from things I've added. They haven't released another update for a while, so I don't honestly know if it's possible it might succeed. -Noel

I happen to agree with you, xpclient, but there will almost certainly come a time when Win 10 sports something new that becomes "must-have" - either that or Microsoft will just end. It won't be a new App, and probably won't be something new in the App arena at all, but something like an ability to support new hardware or an ability to do something we geeks love (e.g., an ability to set up a boot volume with ReFS). Their supreme, utter, obvious marketing failure is that they've failed to win the hearts and minds of technical leaders (e.g., those here on this forum). It's now less stable than any 2 year old operating system in history, it's not got anything new or exciting technically (where it counts), and it's ugly as f***. Uglier. Doing better at ANY ONE of those things could have led to a wider adoption by we geeks. A lot of people listen to what we say. If we were to start saying things like "Gee, it's not too cool out of the box but it can be turned into something nice, and so I've adopted it for my own hardware systems" then others would follow. Those of us in the know just aren't saying that. Windows 7 is still at what, almost 50% share? That's just because the fact that Windows 8.1 can be tweaked into something nice isn't well-known. Pre-Windows 10 systems still account for the MAJORITY of the world's Windows usage. Think about that. I've personally had more trouble with my Win 10 test system (on a VM) lately with the Creator's Update than I've had with any prior Win 10 release. So much so that I've reinstalled it several times, the most recent time being a complete CLEAN install. I've only JUST BARELY been able to make it to where it will successfully get through a Windows Update, and that's only by leaving almost all the cloud-integration crap enabled. As a result, it's banging up against my firewall with such URLs as those used by "delivery optimization" (peer to peer Windows Update file sharing), attempting to login via login.live.com, trying to sync settings via settings-win.data.microsoft.com - NONE of which I want it to do. The tweaks to shut that s*** down leave the system unwilling to complete a Windows Update. Please give me any reason why a knowledgeable technical expert would want this turkey. Microsoft stepped over the line a long time ago, and they just keep going! I'd be willing to pay good money (as I always have in the past) for a decent serious version, but no tech expert I know is even saying that the Enterprise editions are controllable/manageable. Sorry my frustration is showing. -Noel

The only thing Windows - and Microsoft - can possibly respond to from this point forward is complete contempt. Not just no, but HELL NO, I will not allow them to control MY system. Period. FYI, I think Mr. Burnett hasn't worked quite hard enough. He's not going to be able to get there with just settings. Microsoft doesn't care to honor those settings. They're not smart enough to think through how to make their cloud-integrated toy apps even begin to work without a full-time mothership tether. I've let my Win 10 v1703 system just sit quietly for days. It doesn't make any unsolicited contacts except to an NIST time server on a schedule I've set. Not sure if this image will show here, I posted it on another forum: This is WireShark showing no outside-the-LAN communications for half a day. And the only error my system logs all day is right after bootup. Apparently it thinks it’s an error that I’ve disallowed it from starting UAC, because UAC was, is, and always will be an abomination... The trick is to completely shun the toy Apps, cloud integration (OneDrive/Settings), and half-baked personal digital assistant. Then of course that leaves Windows 10 no better than any prior version. -Noel

As I recall the Aero Glass for Win 8+ licensing has always been tied to the disk drive(s). -Noel

Thanks for the feedback on WizMouse and the other utilities. I have not experienced any mouse lag problems myself. I tried using just Win 10's native mouse hover scroll routing, and I found there are those applications WizMouse gets to scroll that are not well-handled normally. Seems to me, now that you mention it, that I do have to click in Excel spreadsheets to get the scroll wheel events routed to that sheet. I might have to try out KatMouse and Actual Window Manager. -Noel

Sounds like it's working as expected. It's easily resolved. Go to Big Muscle's site, take the "Sign in to your donator account" link, and regenerate your key. -Noel

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the scheduled tasks..." -Noel ShakeSpeare

I think the system responsiveness is about the same, but it's a little difficult to tell when the OS is running in a virtual machine and the workstation on which it runs is so fast that everything - even in VMs - is pretty much instantaneous. From what I can see, the amount of RAM used (about 1 GB) is pretty similar to Win 7, but a little more than Win 8.1, to just sit and support an idle desktop that's ready for work. By the way, I noticed only a couple of days ago that Microsoft is now enabling the "App Readiness" service, which if allowed to run will bring the removed AppX packages back after a reboot. That service needs to be disabled, which is now done in Windows10ReTweaker.bat. -Noel

I believe you can do it via a tool out there called something like installwimtweak (or a name very similar to that). I have to ask, though... Why? This works and leaves the system serviceable. -Noel

Now up on build 15063.291 with the May Patch Tuesday updates in... Only 75 processes and 1 GB now to support an empty desktop, including the following 12 I have augmented Windows with to bring its function up to a reasonable level of usability: aerohost.exe - A component of Aero Glass for Win 8+ ClassicStartMenu.exe - The Classic Shell start menu replacement. CLOCK32.EXE - The on-screen digital clock from Windows NT 4! conhost.exe - Running because Aero Glass for Win 8+ is a pre-release build. ProcessHacker.exe - The Process Hacker 2 tool that is displaying the process list shown here. ShellFolderFixUI.exe - A File Explorer window positioning accessory. TSVNCache.exe - Part of the Tortoise SVN package for integrating Subversion code management into Explorer. vmtoolsd.exe (x 2) - Tools support for VMware virtualization (I'm running this in a virtual machine). Windows10FirewallControl.exe - Part of the Sphinx Windows 10 Firewall Control package. Windows10FirewallService.exe - Part of the Sphinx Windows 10 Firewall Control package. WixMouse.exe - An accessory that directs mouse wheel events to hovered-over windows. Just got Visual Studio 2017 installed. That package seems to want pretty badly to talk to vortex.data.microsoft.com (which of course I block), but the OS is now utterly silent with regard to communicating spontaneously online. -Noel