UCyborg

Good, so now we're certain the problem is that one of the instructions used by that program is not supported by your CPU. I compiled the SpectrePoC fork that was linked by @cdob. I disabled all extras, I hope the binary is good. Needs at least Pentium 3 equivalent or better CPU; it utilizes some function relying on SSE instructions and it wouldn't compile without specifying -march=pentium3 parameter on the command line. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WG-62M9ZZwDXNf0xlhx6NhR-_gtDv7AC

What happens if you stop Windows Update service (run services.msc), rename folder SoftwareDistribution in C:\Windows to SoftwareDistribution.old, restart Windows Update service and check for updates again? If it doesn't change anything, you can undo everything by repeating those steps, but deleting the new SoftwareDistribution and renaming the old one back. If it works, you'll lose the update history in the Windows Update interface. This doesn't affect ability to uninstall updates.

It shows that the CPU on the remote server is vulnerable. What is the exception code?

The new experimental version is better. Is anyone else noticing a brief popping up of small black lines/rectangles when hovering over windows' min/max/close buttons? Best to try it through Remote Desktop. This is the kind of thing I'm getting around the taskbar area on Windows 8.1 sometimes. I can reproduce the problem with min/max/close buttons when connecting to Windows 8.1 machine with Remote Desktop which has Aero Glass. Only happens with blurring enabled. I believe this is the same problem that people have been reporting all this time since the Windows 8 era. Also: Read only 2nd paragraph: And:

The glitches with the old Aero Glass for Windows 8.1 have been brought up a couple times here. They can be difficult to reproduce. The questions are, whether a similar fix as in the experimental version for Windows 10 could be applied to Windows 8.1 version and whether @bigmuscle will bother. @rodri4g Can you confirm if they go away if you disable blurring with Aero Glass GUI tool?

True, but we were discussing version 56. Workarounds for the new Quantum are appreciated though. I'm afraid it's more like a feature that has become popular to implement. And for what? Your average clueless Windows user won't bother with a custom theme. How is the frame of a classic Win32 application when using default theme different? It uses virtually identical graphical resources, doesn't shrink when maximized and lacks the application icon on the left side. Microsoft and this whole "unified experience across all devices" or whatever they call it. Look at Office 2016 (and 2013). Heck, Remote Desktop app for Android looks like an UWP app.

I don't get any glitches with Aero Glass 1.5.7 on Windows 10 version 1703.

I know, but just imagine having it on both sides.

Good point about Remote Desktop. Check this out: Looks familiar?

Interesting, I went really quick through those options and must have overlooked this one. It's unchecked on my end. For some reason, it doesn't change anything with (certain) custom themes. I tried loading default theme from the previous Windows build and it's ineffective with it as well. This could explain why you noticed the change without changing anything on your own, besides upgrading Windows and Aero Glass. You also don't get this grey menu background color on Windows 8.1, it always has the same appearance as the title bar.

The GPU is irrelevant.

UxStyle consists of a service and a driver. Do any of the following commands from administrative Command Prompt return any positive results: sc query UnsignedThemes sc query uxstyle If so, and if UxStyle cannot be removed from Control Panel->Programs and Features, these can be used to purge references from registry which will prevent all parts of UxStyle from running: sc delete UnsignedThemes sc delete uxstyle Then reboot and delete the following files: C:\Windows\unsignedthemes.exe C:\Windows\System32\drivers\elytsxu.sys UxStyle hasn't worked properly in years now. Best to avoid it like plague. It's not updated anymore and nobody forked it to fix it. Even Microsoft noticed and is blocking its installer:

You need a working patcher that allows usage of unsigned themes. There's no ideal solution, but if you are careful and switch to default theme before installing a major update, UltraUXThemePatcher works the best. Though any update could replace one of the theming DLLs with unpatched one, so Windows will likely BSOD when trying to load unsigned theme if you forget to switch back. There are also UxTSB DLLs by BigMuscle in the other thread somewhere in this forum section, but the only way to use them is either by letting Aero Glass inject it at logon, which may not work reliably, or use AppInitDLLs method, which doesn't work on computers with secure boot. And even then, not everything works 100% properly, eg. you can't switch to a theme by double-clicking .theme file in Explorer.

The problem is related to FCU build of Windows 10. They changed something in default theme so the whatever element Firefox uses for menus is no longer marked to have transparency. You need a replacement theme, overriding atlas image alone is not sufficient.

Oh, I've had Windows 8.1 on my laptop for some time and didn't experience any reliability issues then, so I don't have any suggestions for your case specifically. Apart for basic things like making sure you have updated drivers for the wireless card and experimenting with advanced settings under wireless card's properties in Device Manager. Though none of that helped me when I had a weird problem with wireless on Windows 10 where the d*** thing always disconnected after half-minute...the workaround was to manually connect rather than let it connect on its own. This was a bit special case as it only happened when the wireless card was bridged with the wired one and was fixed after some time without any special intervention, I assume it was an update. I only posted the instructions in the other thread for how to make use of Windows 7's DLL without uploading it somewhere, since it's not redistributable and I'd rather play it safe. Though you have those weird websites hosting various DLLs...still best to take it from authentic source.

C:\Windows\System32\quartz.dll C:\Windows\System32\en-US\quartz.dll.mui C:\Windows\SysWOW64\quartz.dll C:\Windows\SysWOW64\en-US\quartz.dll.mui Remember to also take care of the .mui files for any other languages other than en-US, in case you have them installed. I keep the original files around, just in case, so I renamed them by appending .bak to their name. And you have to take ownership of the originals beforehand (security tab in the file properties) and give Administrators group Full control permissions over the file. Windows 7 version of quartz.dll also works. but only MS knows the actual differences. Either way, all things I'm aware of that need DirectShow seem to work fine with Windows 10 version of the DLL, including MadVR and cinematic playback in certain old games.

Counting files remains dog-slow on Windows 8.1 in 2018. Nothing improved in that regard on Windows 10 from what I'm observing on my PC. It's indeed a night and day difference compared to 7/8. I have plain old HDDs, where this is most profound since they're slower, but have plenty of capacity and potential to host tons of files of varying size.

I don't know about stability, but regarding functionality, it's possible to bring back the interface from Windows 7's Control Panel to manage wireless networks using a system file from Windows 7.

Well, I was playing with Aero Glass on my native Windows 10 installation again. After disabling the graphics driver, the glitches that would appear while scrolling in Registry Editor disappeared, but I can still reproduce that redraw bug related to blurring with QTTabBar's context menu (when you right-click on the tab bar, not a tab). Hovering with mouse over "Toolbars" almost always results in the submenu not being fully drawn the first time around.

Also worth mentioning, I get very minor glitches under specific circumstances on my Windows 8.1 install as well. Disabling blurring also gets rid of them there. They're the easiest to spot on alt-tab switcher, I use the one from Windows Vista, which has a glassy appearance. Having more windows open helps make it glitch in this case, although when it comes to the glitch in general, this isn't needed. It's pretty random. I don't know much graphics programming, but maybe blurring could be done differently? Could some drivers be cheating/taking faster code paths when it comes to compositing since glass effect isn't the official feature of DWM anymore? One more idea, is it possible to force usage of software rasterizer (WARP) for compositing for testing purposes? I know it must fall-back to software rendering when real graphics driver isn't present/is disabled, but I think it would be nice to be able to try that out without messing with drivers.

There's a registry setting for it, look it up on Aero Glass website under Guide. Or use Aero Glass GUI (also from AG's download page) to turn it on. The symbols downloaded without an issue for me though. Funny thing about this Windows update (and apparently the future ones as well), if you don't run any anti-virus at all, you have to manually set some registry setting to get it.

You know what's funny about the MS's software patch for these vulnerabilities? They don't offer it unless anti-virus software (or you) sets a specific registry setting. So if you don't run any anti-virus, including Windows Defender, you don't get it (or any subsequent patches, according to MS). A measure to prevent blue screens caused by incompatible anti-virus software therefore applies to users that don't run incompatible software in the first place. https://support.microsoft.com/en-hk/help/4073119/protect-against-speculative-execution-side-channel-vulnerabilities-in Edit: should've pasted https://support.microsoft.com/en-sg/help/4072699/january-3-2018-windows-security-updates-and-antivirus-software

I fired up the debugger and traced the problem to the failed call to LoadLibraryExW from combase.dll attempting to load quartz.dll (DirectShow Runtime) as a result of a call to CoCreateInstance issued from wmp.dll. DllMain in quartz.dll fails for some reason, so I replaced both 64-bit and 32-bit version of the DLL and its associated MUI file with the one from Windows 10 and now everything appears to be working properly. Can be done on both Windows 8 and 8.1.

Yeah, it's mostly about correctness. While watermark by itself isn't important, why it glitches is.

Aero Glass is easy to manage so you don't have anything to lose I guess. At least you'll know how it behaves. Hey, guess what happened when I upgraded the laptop I mentioned to FCU? The glitches appeared! So, the only difference was transition from CU to FCU and I see the same problems of which screenshots I've posted from VMware virtual machine on my desktop. Afterwards, I updated software on it, including drivers for Intel HD 4000 which didn't change anything. There's something else, take a good look at the AG's watermark on my screenshots. It's like it has the shadow behind it. It wasn't present in CU with AG 1.5.7 on that laptop. Plus, after the upgrade, the watermark itself started showing up those refresh issues, especially when toggling View->Show desktop icons from desktop context menu. Those of you that have donation.key, maybe rename/move it temporarily and see how the watermark behaves.