ralcool

Hi BM, Found a new bug. Unless it is somehow by design? Today while watching a BD, I discovered by accident some aspects of the theme get disabled. I use TMT v6.01.123 to play my media... when a disc is actually PLAYING.. and the player is windowed.. not full screen. The drop shadows, and rounded corners disappear during BLU RAY playback. Also there is a slight flicker on the bottom border of any open window. The moment I press the 'stop' button... the shadows and corners come back. The caption buttons are not affected. (The theme used is the nice simple NoelC version) Could someone else confirm is this happens on their system. I have a screen grab to prove it, but I think this description is enough. Sean.

Did you adjust your theme yet Noel, your screen grab looks different. I refer to your comment about the glow being too tall. I agree, looks a little odd/thick touching the top&bottom of the title bar on my system. Yet the image you posted above doesn't, appears perfect. Thanks guys. Excellent work BM. Sean.

This little article goes someway to describing what you said there Noel. http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/4E2A8848-5738-45B1-A659-AD7473899D7D.html Except it goes further to argue that Microsoft once promised the impossible in order to dazzle the competition into believing they are behind what to compete with next!. (Well not the impossible... but ultimately undeliverable distractions) I presume the end game was to make anyone else feel that they were wasting their time writing anything.. since M$ are gunna do it better... look at all our convincing fake screen grabs/artist impressions. Hindsight being what it is... Cairo, Longhorn- all vaporware... 'visions' by Microsoft- little more than ... well, buggy prototypes as you said- useful stuff to leak when you are marketing a dream to defuse the competition. The awful part is we got an OS that was always derivative and never optimal- but somehow resilient, and led me to my little saying. "What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away" I wouldn't want to be on the helm of the ship. Sean. PS, My spare i7 still runs a now expired Win8 RP Build 8400 64bit with StartisBack. A few tweaks and the system is very nice. It still runs.. but 'some' Metro Apps don't work anymore..... like who cares? Just need to solve the automatic restart rubbish. Native Aero, generally solid system. Edit... Some Apps do still work.. Weather, News, Travel... Hmm, Interesting if you let it sit and work.

Going by the list of acknowledged and maybe cured bugs lately, beta 5 will be extensive. Rotated screen calculations, aero peek glitches, magnifier tools, odd restarts... quite a work load for our only developer emulating years of refined code. Thumbs up BM! Replacing the programming of Aero back into an OS designed to basically delete the feature cannot be easy. Thank you (and NoelC) for making my system look & feel really nice. (The work of MrGrim also hasn't gone unnoticed- but I don't need to go backwards. I actually like ribbons (generally) , and don't need footers at the bottom of my explorer windows reminding me of my system specs)... I always thought it a waste of space even in Vista. If Microsoft took the direction of Classic Shell or Star Trek, add functionality, remove nothing..... leave no foot prints... Prime Directive type stuff. Don't f**k with or remove things even 0.0000001% of users might use... its not like notepad is expected to be any better after all these years. The Visuals in Media Player haven't been updated for at least a decade, or even the default screen savers...... really MS?, Mystify & Ribbons or WMP Alchemy the best offerings for default themes?! No NEW decent screens savers, or Windows Media Player visualizations have appeared for a decade.... Even tools like WinAMP get updated occasionally.... Don't even bother complaining to me... I don't care. I expect even less.

Yet women say men have commitment issues Noel.... I'm using your theme on my daily workstation/home theatre.. very happy with almost everything. As xpclient says, It takes some third party software.. but it is possible to enjoy NT6.3

I don't know what you did, but the result looks nice. My Win7 desktop looks fresher without the taskbar blur now I care about wallpaper again. (Bing I'm afraid.. they do have interesting stuff daily....) Is there a simple reg hack or something that does the same job?

Even the glow file from the original alpha doesn't fix it.

My current list of reg entries for glass enable... see question in red. @infinality, Thanks. snip Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 ;Enable BM AeroGlass [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows] "LoadAppInit_DLLs"=dword:00000001 "AppInit_DLLs"="C:\\AeroGlass\\DWMGlass.dll" "RequireSignedAppInit_DLLs"=dword:00000000 ; Enable Custom Theme Signature (I'm not using this) ;[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM] ;"BypassThemeSignature"=dword:00000001 ;[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM] ;"BypassThemeSignature"=dword:00000001 ;Set simple Atlas Theme & Reflection path into HKLM (new string as of Beta4) [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM] "CustomThemeAtlas"="C:\\AeroGlass\\themeatlas.png" "CustomThemeReflection"="C:\\AeroGlass\\reflection.png" ; Enable Glass Reflection (should I use a higher value?) [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM] "ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM] "ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity"=dword:00000001

In the other thread, Aero Glass for Win8 .. around the time of version1.1...?, someone extracted the original reflection bitmap I think from the DWMGlass.dll during a discussion about something. I didn't think to save it... and can't seem to locate it now. Perhaps that is a mild version to use.. MrGrim had one too... I should try it.. but IIRC he made it stronger. Things to try today.

Download it again, BM has fixed the error as mentioned above..... And I used F8 just fine to 'fix' my system... haven't MS made some changes there!... several more steps & screens to find the 'safe mode' option.

Working now BM. Thanks The glow effect is odd as you mentioned.

Wow me too, I altered my Reg for the atlas string name change, dropped the new version into my glass folder- restarted DWM by closing cmd box. Bam black screen, flashing, cursor visible.... waiting... nothing. Reboot, into a black screen. Holding ctrl didn't bypass DWM loading on second attempt either. Ok, Entered safe mode. renamed dwmglass.dll to something else.. reboot back to normal. Insert Beta3 again. Here is my minidump for you. (~30Mb decompressed) Dump_Log.zip Hope this helps.

Could you do the exactly the same thing instead with the Win8 CP Buttons? They are blended better I think than Win7 style.. no rounded corners...fresher.. less half tone look. add dark Win8 symbols.. I could like it that way. http://glass8.berlios.de/themes/win8cp.png Thankyou!

Virtual CloneDrive does the job better by supporting bluray.

Would it be worthwhile for testers to indicate which GPU they are using? Could Catalyst or Other OEM drivers be the source of some display issues on systems that are other wise clean installs. I use an Nvidia GT440, everything works nicely on a single 49" HDTV since prototype on both builds of 8.1 (9431 & 9600) Getting better each month. Thank you BM.

How? Most sites with available direct links to rtm isos died the day after release.

I noticed Classic Shell 4.0 DOES use the original 8.1 icon with the nice animation. FYI, Start8 doesn't either. So, Classic Shell 4.0 for me. Plus it looks awesome with AeroGlass mod from BM. Edit, Since Windows 8... Now I have 3 Start menu options. Classic, Win-X, and (not really) Metro. 'vive la différence' The right mouse button learned a new trick. And Microsoft taught/reminded us to actually use the Win key on our keyboards.

@NoelC I've been studying your theme that I use all the time. It has been mentioned before about adding some glow behind the min/maximise buttons to help them not disappear on a dark background. By comparing the CP/RP themes, there is some missing 'white' backgrounds in perhaps the area circled green that could fix it. Similar as how the orange circled area appears better by using a gray background. (Also white in CP/RP) I'm not fond of the white hint at the top of the close icon, circled purple.. more RTM like here would look ace. Which editor could I use to tweak my own themeatlas ? Thanks for all the effort guys! Sean

Is the Alpha1 not compatible with the Preview x64 Build 9431 any more BM? I get only messages at log on; THEMECPL.DLL, is incompatible SHELL32.DLL , is incompatible Ending with, Your DWM is incompatible with AeroGlass. Do you want to retry symbols downloading? And that doesn't work either. Used Setup1.1 to install as recommended. Tried with/without license.key debug Log only shows machine ID, then License file loaded / or not. .. Only uninstalling got system back to normal. Sean. Should I load another way?, How does NoelC use Preview version 8.1? PS, Prototype is working perfectly as usual with loader- but Alpha version doesn't run correctly from loader (DLL2DWMInjector.exe) Glow effect enabled. No Glass. Just my results....

I was looking into some Windows history tonight, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Window_Manager When you read this link, the task to restore Aero is crazy.. Well done to BM for emulating the effect. Why did Microsoft rip out such developed code instead of just disable for their new look. Early CP/RC Builds still had 'transparency option'.. now gone. Good Luck BM, Cheers! ST.

That screen shot NoelC is great. Nice Glass. Good work BM!

I haven't tried Aero 0.95RC on Win8RTM (I decided to never install it given the bad press, and not wanting to waste almost 4Gb of D/L allowance) It was immediately obvious in reviews that the RTM version suddenly lost a special feature. I had been using the Windows 8 Release Preview 8400 on a spare system since release, and often still compare it to the Win8.1 Release Preview now on my other HTPC. So much to talk about... In short I am trying the 8.1 'Aero prototype' on the HTPC. I wish it was better..... The Aero effect in the prototype has minimal blur, background windows appear almost white as before- nothing like 8400 which I thought was the benchmark to duplicate. (Having not used your 0.95RC or later.. I don't know how it looks) To me, The Windows build 8400 is almost the right combination of Ribbon menus, and Aero Glass,The updated Task Mgr, File Progress indicators... etc (Yes I am ignoring completely the 'Metro' side of things, since it is total rubbish on screens larger than say ~21" regardless which build you try. Funny how two simple things have thousands of us complaining and hacking. There was enough Aero (well, Transparency) in 8400 to evade complaint. They need to reinstate it natively... Even the Start8 replacement menu is laggy- not like in Win7. Even Gadgets still worked on 8400, Adding Start8 to it recently makes it even feel like 8.1 running BM's AeroGlass... Only better. Using Metro on my 46" screen is a joke... stand back and refocus for a horrible massive experience of dysfunction. Illogical scrolling- That News App that is useless. So Desktop mode is my place to be. Windows 8.x will be fine- there is some great new stuff.......It just needs Slightly Transparent Borders.. ala GLASS. Keep trying BM, I will be here testing for you for the 8.1 version of your Glass replacement. I run it everyday despite the cmd box- at least the license.key works nicely thank you! Microsoft really needs to learn to listen more- removing these simple features has ruined the look and function of the desktop (Probably the point). Ralcool