NoelC

Thanks for the PowerShell mini-education in traversing the registry structure. If it's at all interesting to anyone, here's what a slightly modified version returned, just selecting path, then sorted -Noel

Repeat after Microsoft: All things are possible by spending even more money on useless technology. -Noel

And THAT is exactly what's worst about Microsoft's present scheme. It's as though they've taken everything about Windows that's ever been weak and decided that's what needs to be the central focus of Windows 10: Toy apps (Windows Live Gallery, Gadgets, etc.)OS upgrades (what person in their right mind thinks such a system could ever be stable?)Web development philosophiesPrivacy problems and malwareReinstalling the OS every few months It's nothing less than a severe case of cranial-rectalitis. -Noel

Thanks, but... I already got the part about selecting the graphics from the PNG. As much as I have learned, I just don't understand what is being specified (for z = 3601/3602) for the sizing/content margins. Any chance you could add a few words to that definition? -Noel

I have to admit, I've either missed something important or have a hole in my pattern recognition skills, but after fooling with the layout file for a good while, I still really just don't understand what the 3601 = TMT_SIZINGMARGINS and 3602 = TMT_CONTENTMARGINS sections do. BigMuscle, could I trouble you to please describe in some detail what the numbers mean? I've been trying to get all the borders to look good in the theme atlas I've been working on, and I can't seem to see the pattern to select the right numbers so that all the different windows have the right appearance. Also, can you advise how to increase the size of the margin? Thanks! -Noel

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs... ...it's just possible... ...that you haven't grasped the size of the f****ng problem!" -Noel

I started with BigMuscle's original .layout file, for which that's expected behavior, so yes, it's expected - but perhaps not wanted. What entries do you tweak to remove the border from the Windows Start Menu and Notifications pull-out, dhjohns? Since the border there is not blurred I might prefer to remove it or at least make it smaller -Noel

You don't have the Opacity slider quite all the way down on 0. The "light" gradient shading at the top of the title bar adds a bit of needed elegance IMO. -Noel

Not quite sure what you're asking - as I mentioned (and showed above) sihost.exe continues to run. The other stuff I removed with PowerShell, via intika's GitHub-hosted instructions, and that still seems to be holding (knocking on wood now). It survived the cumulative update to 10586.11 last night. Keep also in mind I've been through the Task Scheduler with a fine-tooth comb, and have disabled many things. If you're asking how I keep Win 10 from talking to various servers, I have a 3rd party firewall package - Sphinx Windows 10 Firewall Control. It's not strictly necessary to use 3rd party software, as Windows' own firewall can be reconfigured to block outgoing requests by default, but there is some evidence there are "secret" rules that may not be disableable, and I like the management tools the Sphinx package offers. Setting up a firewall to deny outgoing connection requests by default does require some ongoing effort and may not be for everyone. Plus it remains to be seen whether there are long-term implications to keeping Windows cut off from what it wants to do. I haven't been doing it long enough to know, for example, whether the activation will expire. Research shows that almost certainly Windows 7 can be run that way, and quite likely also Windows 8, but I don't know about 10 yet. -Noel

Since several of you have asked for colorless versions, here you go... http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/10586/SquareCornersNoExtraColor10586.zip Note that it's difficult, without help from the theme atlas graphics, to get enough color to differentiate the foreground window from the others with the current coloration logic in bigmuscle's software alone. I know bigmuscle was experimenting with an alternate method; I'll have to go look that up again and try it. Speaking of which... Bigmuscle, have you considered updating your GUI tool lately to include that option? That tool is the only one I use to adjust color and transparency any more. -Noel

One of the recent problems the ATI boys have been struggling to solve (apparently for several versions now) I've seen documented as a "video memory leak", so perhaps they're doing funky things in the memory management area. -Noel

Thanks MaxXPSoft. So you're saying sihost.exe is still running (as it is for me)? It's interesting several have said that removed Apps come back on their own. That hasn't happened for me - perhaps because I don't let Win 10 talk to the mothership at all. -Noel

Can you elaborate a little more how you removed sihost, and how the system runs without it? Thanks. -Noel

That could be - though they have a strong test process, ATI is not known for releasing perfect software every time. Display drivers are insanely complex beasts, as I'm sure you know, bigmuscle. I only posted here to encourage you, if you determine anything about the specifics of the bug, to report it to AMD. They DO listen to bug reports, and I can imagine I'll be upgrading to a newer release at some point and it would be nice if they already had the bug fixed by then. At the moment I'm on 15.9.1 beta and I guess I'll stay there for a while... -Noel

Thanks for the quick feedback. I only just finished it before posting, so if you find any glitches make sure to let me know and I'll tidy them up. -Noel

For anyone who'd like to give it a try, here's a custom theme atlas that brings just a bit more style to the caption buttons. I haven't yet worked up rounded-corners on the window frames themselves, as I have with theme atlases in the past. That's still work in progress. http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/10586/SquareCorners10586.zip Features: Glass caption buttons that live inside the frame with light glyphs and slightly unsharp corners, and are subtle when not in use, good for dark or light backgrounds. Blue tint for active windows, works IMO best with white title bar text and a black or dark color for inactive windows. Significant drop shadows. Please let me know what you think. -Noel

Well of course, there's really not any substance being added to Windows 10. That seemed pretty obvious already. Thus the marketers have to focus on what it does better than "old reliable", which folks are hanging on to. The "in-place upgrade" is strictly to cause disruption and buzz, because as every evil marketer knows, free press is good press. -Noel

Booting the computer is not a task. The operating system is there to facilitate tasks, not be one. -Noel

Nope, all's well with my 8.1 and 7 systems that are kept from tethering to the mothership. -Noel

By the way, some ridiculous Microsoft employee named Aul eMailed a note claiming "This desktop update is packed with nearly 200 new capabilities". I'm thinking he's counting each pixel. -Noel

My O&O ShutUp10 settings right after the "upgrade": I had almost everything green before. Only things not thrown to green were: Windows Defender disabled, Access to local language for browsers disabled, and a couple of the Windows Update items. All the rest, most notably membership in spynet, telemetry, and synchronization, were flipped to red by the "upgrade". Also, all Apps were restored, even though I had removed / de-provisioned them every way I know how. This included Cortana. OneDrive was restored and re-enabled. A large number of scheduled operations were restored in the Task Scheduler. A bunch of services I had disabled were re-enabled. -Noel

Someone changed the Path editing dialog in the old control panel: Of course, we now have the amazing ability to make the current window have a colored title bar. Context menus have a slightly different style. Pretty much the same set of processes is required to boot up a minimum system, and it takes about 1 GB just sitting there. Performance doesn't seem different. I think it might be a little worse, with regard to file system access. Not that computers ever need to access files of course. It's observably more likely to try to communicate online, even with all known privacy settings thrown (and which had to be re-thrown when 10586 reverted them all - why are there not lawsuits?). It's broken a few things (e.g., Big Muscle's Aero Glass) that depended upon undocumented things. I have no idea whether anything's different in the Metro/Modern/Universal/App realm, nor could I care one iota less. Fairly sensitive applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, as well as ancient applications continue to work just as they did with 10240, so I don't think much of anything changed in Win32. Even Big Muscle already has a new Aero Glass that works. For no discernable feature benefit (to us) we've all been subjected to an in-place upgrade, which no sane person would do on purpose. But it advances Microsoft's cause to destroy our desires for a system customized to our needs - not to mention privacy. It is no less than a clear and sad testament that Microsoft has lost the talent and desire to any longer consider Windows a serious operating system. The golden era of computing is over. -Noel

I haven't seen any reason to think there's been a significant kernel change. I wonder what they're talking about. The file system implementation seems as slow as in build 10240.An idle system seems to need about 1 GB and roughly the same processes.Picky programs all still run, implying no change to Win32. Anti-malware authors, who may use undocumented interfaces, might be especcially sensitive to system changes, but that's nothing new. Even our own Big Muscle has a version of his software working fine with build 10586. Frankly all I see they've changed is some window dressing, and only a little at that (ooh, colored title bars!) I did see one improvement so far that stood out. The small dialog you used to get with a one line text field for building the system path is now a multi-line dialog so you can see the individual folder paths more easily. Nice feature, but did it really need an entire OS replacement? -Noel

-Noel

Here's a full subfolder listing: http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/10586/TasksDirs.txt -Noel