UCyborg

In Windows 7, they changed Windows Time service to be started manually or by the event of computer joining a domain. For non-domain computers, there's a scheduled task setup called SynchronizeTime that syncs time every Sunday at 1:00:00 or as soon as possible if it can't run then. But starting with Windows 8, SynchronizeTime task lacks the trigger, so it never runs. In addition, ForceSynchronizeTime task is added with custom action and trigger defined, so cannot be inspected in Task Scheduler. Does it ever run by itself? Running it manually does sync time. There are some clues when exporting ForceSynchronizeTime to XML: <Actions Context="LocalService"> <ComHandler> <ClassId>{A31AD6C2-FF4C-43D4-8E90-7101023096F9}</ClassId> <Data>TimeSyncTask</Data> </ComHandler> </Actions> According to registry entries, this invokes code in TimeSyncTask.dll. But the following part is still a mystery: <Triggers> <WnfStateChangeTrigger> <Enabled>true</Enabled> <Delay>PT1M</Delay> <StateName>7510BCA32F018915</StateName> </WnfStateChangeTrigger> </Triggers> Any ideas?

I thought deleting Manage Wireless Networks GUI in Windows 8 was going to be the most radical idea they'd come up with. Nope, here came the new way to manage file associations. To associate a program with all file types it can open, you're supposed to click through all file types and associate them one by one instead of having a button to associate them all with a single click. The Explorer interface also has ability to sort, but who needs that, right? /s Let's just remove the old interface and make it redirect to Settings app, also crash Explorer while at it. Some other bugs/oddities I've encountered in the current supposedly stable build that come to mind: Error message about not enough memory resources being available instead of copyright message in the Command Prompt in WinPE. Various Explorer/shell glitches: Trying to delete a file from the root of plain removable storage device presents a file confirmation dialog always shows file size as 0 bytes and file modification date is missing. Accent color change makes the file view scroll up (forcing usage of the old ListView control fixes that). IFileCopyHook interface is broken. Aero Peek is buggy with partial rendering of window frames and offsetting their positions (Aero Glass fixes that). Inconsistent behavior when a network adapter connected to internet has *NdisDeviceType set to 1 in registry; login/lock screen indicates internet connectivity, tray icon in the taskbar doesn't (the popup when you click it says Connected). Programs' thumbnails used in alt-tab interface and taskbar program buttons' popups are lost when a fullscreen game switches to non-desktop resolution. At various places throughout the OS, where text must be shortened to fit, an ellipsis isn't always appended. Also, shouldn't the notifications/notification center appear on the monitor with the main taskbar?

Version 1.5.9 has been officially released yesterday! Has anyone noticed that Aero Glass actually fixes broken Aero Peek behavior where under certain circumstances window frames are shifted and not rendered entirely? It usually happens if you don't have any window maximized or placed in the way that it covers upper-left portion of the desktop.

To summarize, prevalent thing across both threads are complaints about debug windows and watermark. There is very little about supposed technical issues with current experimental version. Someone mentioned memory leak, but didn't specify if the version of AG used was current at the time. And then the Windows updates and things shuffle around in DWM, requiring new debug symbols, which aren't downloaded automatically by AG unless the user has donation key and require manual intervention. So either the current experimental version already works well or if there are crashing or similar critical bugs still lurking in there, they're edge cases and nobody ran into them. There's also a fact that Big Muscle doesn't share his thoughts on release-ready status of the experimental version, so one can only speculate. It already happened that a lot of time passed between when experimental version was released and when it was followed by release version and changes between the experimental and release version were minimal at best, not worth mentioning in the changelog.

Found a bug, nothing wrong with browsers: However, under certain circumstances, eg. when browsing with Firefox in private mode, the offending script will be automatically blocked as part of its tracking protection and the bug will not occur: Basically, the advertising on the site interferes with its basic functionality.

Well in my case, with the current debug version, I do get the watermark on the second monitor.

It works correctly on my PC with Firefox 51.0.1, but broken with latest Chrome. It also works with stock browser on Android 4.4.4 and again, broken with Chrome. Edit: seems loading circle is absent on older browsers.

Given the choice of running debug version of Aero Glass or no Aero Glass at all, I personally prefer the latter option. It's just not the same as the release build, which is the real deal. What bugs me more than debug window and watermark are choppier window animations, which isn't really surprising outcome for debug build compiled with all the logging enabled and lack of compiler optimizations.

Windows 95 says when the subsystem version in executable file's header is higher than OS version that this program expects a newer Windows version, but NT systems say that it's not a valid application. I wonder why is that. Maybe due to the fact that NT could/can historically run on different CPU architectures and they just put the same error regardless whether it's just version mismatch or CPU for which the EXE was compiled for.

I guess it depends whether you find documented changes useful. Cumulative updates are great from the ease of maintenance perspective, but there's a problem as soon something you don't want is included, in this case Meltdown/Spectre patches. I'm currently on April 2018 patch level. Windows 8.1 is a bit shaky on my hardware, I've had occasional DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE BSOD when shutting down in the past. The problem hasn't surfaced once since January 2018 update. So whatever changes they did in kernel obviously have positive impact on my system's stability. Probably an isolated case though, potentially depending on uncontrollable factors. Edit: Never mind, those BSODs were caused by buggy driver for my network card. I forgot I've turned off every checkbox in its properties on Power Management tab. Guess I got some things mixed up in my head as I remember reading about some past unrelated update dealing with certain DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE BSOD, but it's unrelated to the problem I had.

When I tried to be smarter than Microsoft when it comes to updating strategy, I ended up with Explorer that continuously leaked memory. Then I risked re-installing Windows on top of existing installation, aka. repair install, something I haven't done since XP days. Results were catastrophic back then, turned my computer into a slow turtle. Fortunately, the original problem was fixed and I haven't encountered any major problems that would involve more than re-installing/re-applying an odd program/registry tweak or two.

If just K32* functions are needed for Pale Moon to launch on Vista, then PSAPI_VERSION=1 should be added to Preprocessor Definitions and the Minimum Required Version setting value changed to 6.00 or just deleted since Vista should still be the Visual Studio's default target.

There are some extra dependencies and I'm no expert on Windows API. I noticed that for Vista, those 2 missing functions in kernel32.dll were originally implemented in psapi.dll. Microsoft moved them to kernel32.dll in Windows 7 and since that OS onwards, the versions in psapi.dll just redirect to real functions in kernel32.dll which Rufus tries to use, but they don't exist on Vista, so we can use the ones in psapi.dll.

Those are usually triggered when some UWP app is opened or something else triggers UWP window framework. They shouldn't keep popping up if you don't close them. Nah, Aero Glass doesn't spy on its users. Strange. Previous experimental version did that on my system as well, but the latest one is fine.

Here's the patch that can be applied on top of latest revision of Rufus source code to restore Windows Vista support and the executable (version 3.1.1321). I experienced strange bug where the code that is supposed to prevent DLL sideloading causes UI elements to lose Aero look and reverts to classic, so the patch removes that. The mitigation doesn't have much value IMO, if you're worried that the program will load malicious DLL from its folder, then you've already lost by getting such DLL in the first place. Still, the relation between UI look and the DLL search directory is odd. At first I thought older version of comctl32.dll was getting loaded, that's not the case though. Calling SetDefaultDllDirectories does it. It's one of those functions that were added with an update and the issue appears to be exclusive to Vista. Unless there's a separate update addressing that.

The exact cause of the issue remains unknown at the moment. I was able to make 3 test posts in Windows 10 section, but the problem returned quickly. We know there's something strange going on with the site and that it's not related to user permissions.

No biggie. The name is very similar to how they name their sound cards. You're maintaining quite a list there, GJ!

Tried with a different browser, still no dice. Good point, I tried posting in a different topic in Windows 10 section and still the same error. Strange, I didn't put any links in my post.

Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 is not hardware, it's pure software solution. The download link is on this page. Normally, when you run it and click Next, activation prompt requiring activation key will open, except on Vista, where you get an error that Windows operating system running on this computer is not supported. But, if you attach debugger to the installer and do what I said before clicking Next, the activation prompt will open. Of course, you can't proceed from this point onwards without license key.

@WinClient5270 You misunderstood, Wolfenstein: The Old Blood works great without any workarounds. But downloading it and running it on Vista machine could become the problem when Steam drops Vista support. On an unrelated note, I could play Wolfenstein: The New Order on Windows XP x64 some time ago. This game was compiled with an older compiler and id Software's engines were historically minimalistic in Windows API usage, though recent games use more functions. Those instructions are for unrelated commercial piece of software, Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3. It does use InstallShield installer. If there's a known method for those like with Windows Installers (I'm personally not aware of it), it oughtta be easier than attaching a debugger and hunting for version check routines. I know some small pieces of the puzzle when it comes to programming for Windows, so I used that knowledge to get that particular installer to cooperate.

The new experimental AG version released yesterday doesn't need any symbol files, at least until the next cumulative update for Windows 10. The huge memory leaks from the previous experimental build appear to be gone.

OK, I'll try again later and let you know...it's weird, I could post anywhere except there, maybe some cache got messed on my end, but one would expect that this would result in inability to post anywhere.

This one worked out-of-the box at the time, still have the screenshot: I mentioned Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 installer in that post, which refused to install. I didn't modify the executable itself because GetVersionEx function was called from a bunch of different places. The installer could be launched and the welcome page worked without any workarounds, at which point I ran OllyDbg (version 2.01) , selected File->Attach and picked the installer's process. After analysis is complete, right-click in the main pane, Select module->ntdll, press Ctrl + N and start typing RtlGetVersion, double-click on the highlighted entry and press F2 to set the breakpoint at the function. The installer can now be unpaused hitting F9 key, and clicking Next should eventually cause RtlGetVersion to be called (it's used internally by GetVersionEx, which is what applications normally call). Pressing F8 a few times will eventually move the current instruction pointer to a series of instructions that look like this: MOV EAX,DWORD PTR DS:[EDI+0A4] MOV DWORD PTR DS:[ESI+4],EAX MOV EAX,DWORD PTR DS:[EDI+0A8] MOV DWORD PTR DS:[ESI+8],EAX MOVZX EAX,WORD PTR DS:[EDI+0AC] MOV DWORD PTR DS:[ESI+0C],EAX MOV EAX,DWORD PTR DS:[EDI+0B0] MOV DWORD PTR DS:[ESI+10],EAX These fill the first 4 significant members (dwMajorVersion, dwMinorVersion, dwBuildNumber, dwPlatformId) of OSVERSIONEX structure pointed to by the pointer passed to GetVersionEx called by application. When MOV EAX,DWORD PTR DS:[EDI+0A4] is highlighted, you should see something like this in a pane below: [0033A0A4]=6 The part after the equal sign is important, it represents the value that will be copied to dwMajorVersion, the pointer on the left could be anything. Pressing F8 two more times highlights the next instruction that takes the value that will be copied to dwMinorVersion. On Vista, this is 0, so you double-click the entry and change it to 1, which is what happens on Windows 7, so your OS version now reads 6.1 instead of 6.0. Selecting Detach from the File menu then detaches debugger from installer and continues its execution. So this was rather specific example. Some programs may need to be launched from debugger to be able to catch version check. For 64-bit applications, you'd need to use a 64-bit debugger (x64dbg comes in both 32 and 64-bit flavors) and the instructions look a bit different, but the pattern in the RtlGetVersion function is practically the same. Other programs may employ anti-debugging tricks, so you'd probably need some plugin for the debugger to hide it. I never dealt with that kind. PS: Equalizer APO might work on Vista, but wasn't tested by developers.

Official - Windows 10 Worst Crap Ever! - clicking Submit Reply in this thread gives me 403 Forbidden error...Help?

People either accepted the way Windows 10 looks by default and don't care anymore or are sticking with older Windows versions. Aero Glass forum used to be very alive in the Windows 8.x days.