NoelC

Ask away. I can't promise to be able to get to it soon, but I'll try to remember. I'm SUPER busy right now and if I end up distracted for too long I might forget to come back here - I apologize in advance if that happens. And you never know, someone else might find the time to do it. -Noel

I tried cutting a single row of pixels off the top of each of the caption button fills. I'm out of time and can't test it myself just now, though... See how this works for you... http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win8/Win8RTM_With_CP_Borders3.png -Noel

I had that discussion with him when he removed the accent that Aero Glass for Win 8+ uses. What we have now is what he replaced it with. I think he felt that using the Win 10 native blur is simply more useful overall for folks who are not using Big Muscle's tool.Blame Microsoft for returning a half-a$$ed rendition of Aero Glass to try to placate users who wrote numerous feedbacks. -Noel

You don't want to merge the layout files. You just want to use the file I provided as is. -Noel

I was looking at that result and I was thinking maybe the caption button tops could be cut down 1 pixel and not interfere with that light border. I haven't the time tonight but I'll look at it tomorrow. Would you think that would be a visual improvement? I'm not using that theme atlas on any system myself, so it's hard to judge. If there's interest, I'll try making up a copy tomorrow with shorter caption buttons. -Noel

Is it the only theme atlas you've tried? Does mine do it? http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/10240/RoundedCornersBlueActive.png http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/10240/RoundedCornersBlueActive.png.layout Seems to be working well here on both Win 8.1 and 10 (10240). One caveat: I haven't rebooted the 8.1 yet. -Noel

A kindred spirit. Once tamed (in my case with an alternate theme, theme atlas, Aero Glass, Classic Shell, trimming/tuning, privacy tweaks) Win 8.x can actually be a nice system. I guess all that's left is the kernel when the dust settles. I like, for example, that there's more client area in Windows Explorer. It's not a big thing in itself, but every little bit adds up. -Noel

*#&%$@!!!! This "keep up with the updates" BS is starting to really cheese me off!! Today we see another update to Windows Update: KB3083325 Windows Update Client for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2: September 2015 I *just* got my firewall setup straight to allow Windows Updates and block everything else. I was thinking that keeping up with Microsoft's Windows Update patches might be a good thing, but by gosh since it's Optional I think I'm just going to hold off on this one. -Noel

LOL, I may have butted heads with you in the past, but I've got to say I do like your sense of humor. -Noel

Glad you like it. Thanks for the beer offer, but don't worry - I'm happy to have been able to help. As dhjohns has already confirmed, it should be possible to use that Theme Atlas on Win 10 along with Big Muscle's .layout file, which maps a Win 8 theme atlas graphic resource file to a Win 10 system... -Noel

From my perspective that does not happen, as I have disabled UAC entirely (policy change or EnableLUA registry mod required) and my account is always a full-time Administrator. I have never seen a "Change" ownership operation fail like that. It never ceases to amaze me how Microsoft strives to take control of people's own computers away from them. Can you at least start by renaming the $Windows.~BT folder to something else? -Noel

Take ownership of the parent folder and look for the checkboxes to include subfolders and files. Then set the permissions so that your username has full control. -Noel

Maybe he's just detecting the level of telemetry that was operational before he ever installed the update, which increases the telemetry gathering. I've never installed that update and I see plenty of attempts to connect. This isn't a new issue. What's new - not to put too fine a point on it - is that we no longer TRUST Microsoft to do what's good for us. -Noel

I'm pretty sure that's because of changes Microsoft has made to the Taskbar implementation itself, but I'll let Big Muscle confirm. -Noel

[emphasis added] Even people who can't use the word "caught" or "weren't" know how to keep their data private. I guess we know what's important! Good for them! Regarding the concept... Most folks naively think that just a setting or two needs to be thrown and all's well. Not true! One needs to attack the Kraken on multiple overlapping fronts - sure, disable all the privacy settings, BUT ALSO disable services that implement "phone home" behavior, block known telemetry server names from being resolved, block known IP addresses from being contacted, and implement a "whitelist" deny by default strategy for the parts of the system known to offend. I'm here to tell you, after having been continually refining my "whitelist" strategy now for a couple of weeks, that no one measure kills it all. Software has gotten THAT complex, and Microsoft has had a long time to try to out-think us. They don't just try a little bit and give up! I see multiple different services trying repeatedly to phone home to the same addresses on a system where every privacy setting is thrown, where every known privacy-invading service is blocked, where a big list of server names is redirected to 0.0.0.0, and where the firewall blocks things not specifically allowed by me. Frankly, it's ******* ridiculous! I can't believe I trusted Windows so implicitly all these years. -Noel

Take the stats from here: http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-daily-20150701-20150901 Resample it horizontally to make the curves (trends) more apparent, and... -Noel

@klasik, let me re-check my work. Maybe somehow the two got mixed where they shouldn't have... Yes, I screwed up and left all the resources from the CP to mix with those of the RTM. Too much rush. Sorry! Try this one: http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win8/Win8RTM_With_CP_Borders2.png -Noel

Just a reminder, in case the overall thread message has been hidden: Once you have thwarted the attempt to "upgrade", hide the specific updates listed at the start of this thread and it won't bother you again. FYI, my philosophy up to now has been slightly less draconian - I have chosen to go ahead allow the newer Windows Update processes to be installed into older systems, on the general principle that Windows Update has been improved and it's possible the older versions will stop working. I'm starting to question my own approach, given that Microsoft is drop-loading more and more privacy invading stuff into the older systems. My trials and tribulations with developing firewall settings to increase my privacy with Win 8.1 as well as 10 have led me to better understand Microsoft's goals. What I don't yet know is how intertwined their increased data gathering is with the newer update processes, which apparently is more complex, using a LOT more servers and content delivery networks. -Noel

Your instructions are a bit vague, but I transplanted the borders and drop shadows from the Win 8 CP theme atlas you supplied into the Win 8 RTM theme atlas. http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win8/Win8RTM_With_CP_Borders.png I haven't tested this at all, nor did I do anything to the glow in that I had done before. Please let me know if you find the above PNG to be what you want. If not, please be specific and I can easily do more surgery. -Noel

Well, it turns out I crave the more advanced version than the "Plus" edition I bought, because I really do want to see which service running under svchost is doing the communications. They're allowing me to upgrade for an incremental cost to the "Network/Cloud" edition. -Noel Edit: Testing editing with a more restrictive profile that does not allow Internet Explorer to communicate with some Google servers.

OK, got the files. I'll take a look inside them when I can find a little time - hopefully soon. -Noel

Right-click it and Save As a .7z file. -Noel

Yes, they're all http: or https: type connections. I don't see TCP connections for any other ports at this point. I suspect most are "CDN" (Content Delivery Network) type addresses. Microsoft is putting a helluva load on the internet with Windows 10 and they know it will require all the load handling measures that can be mustered. I'm more suspicious of the https: (port 443) ones in general, as these would represent something Microsoft would not want others to see. Plus the encryption / decryption process takes extra resources. What I didn't list were the amount of contacts. Example: I've run Windows 10 all day in a VM today. Have done some surfing with it, but not very much else (other than starting some applications and taking some screen grabs). For all the huge amount of effort I've put into blocking its chattiness online (AND making Updates NOT be automatic), these non-LAN addresses were logged as successfully being contacted via TCP today. I'm listing the number of times first, with the port after: Communications that succeeded: Nbr ofConns By Address 3 svchost 23.13.224.238:443 https: to Akamai Technologies, Cambridge2 svchost 23.13.224.50:443 https: to Akamai Technologies, Cambridge4 svchost 23.36.88.190:443 https: to Akamai Technologies, Cambridge2 svchost 65.55.138.111:443 https: to Microsoft Hosting, Redmond2 svchost 157.55.133.204:443 https: to Microsoft Azure, Redmond4 svchost 157.55.250.220:443 https: to Microsoft Azure, Redmond2 svchost 23.14.84.57:80 http: to Akamai Technologies, Cambridge4 svchost 93.184.215.200:80 http: to Edgecast Networks, Wichita Communications that were blocked in the same time period: 1 dmclient 64.4.54.253:443 https: to Microsoft bingbot, Redmond2 SIH client 157.55.133.204:443 https: to Microsoft Azure, Redmond6 logtransport 192.150.19.174:443 https: to hl2rcv.adobe.com, Saratoga2 taskhostw 23.4.37.163:80 http: to Akamai Technologies, Cambridge2 taskhostw 23.4.43.27:80 http: to Akamai Technologies / NTT America, Cambridge2 taskhostw 23.14.84.115:80 http: to Akamai Technologies, Cambridge2 taskhostw 23.14.84.154:80 http: to Akamai Technologies, Cambridge6 taskhostw 178.255.83.1:80 http: to ocsp.comodoca.com, London5 taskhostw 178.255.83.2:80 http: to crl.comodoca.com, LondonNote that 2 connections by SIH (Silent Install Helper) Client were blocked 157.55.250.220:443 (which is one of the addresses listed as successfully contacted by svchost). This probably implies the need for improvement in the firewall setup, which at the moment I have permitting communications by svchost that do not fall in specific blacklists. The intent is to keep Windows Update capable of working, though not automatically. -Noel

There's a known bounce that happens on weekends, but these stat counting sites bounce around more than I'd like to see, given how many millions of web accesses they claim to be aggregating and counting. They don't even agree with one another terribly well. This one shows trends... http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-daily-20150801-20150831 Note that Win 7 fell initially but now seems to be holding steady, and XP is in very slight decline over the month of August. Win 8.1 and "Unknown" seem to be losing ground to Win 10. That Win 8.1 adopters are moving on isn't terribly surprising. I seem to be one of the few who's turned it into something good. Possibly one of the most interesting things to me is that the Win 10 adoption curve seems to be leveling off. Just as a guess looking at nothing but that curve, I'd say it's going to reach about 10% and stay there. That's pretty sad, given how aggressively MS is shoving the OS down people's throats. -Noel

You missed the point. I'm legal and would like the system to continue to be able to verify that it is properly licensed and remain activated. I'm not convinced it will do that forever without a network connection. To put it more directly: How does a person separate THAT necessary communication out from the communication that, say, uploads key buffers or recorded audio? -Noel