[Clean Alt-Tab for Win8: desktop item and thumbnails removed]

Now I see, Administrators have only Read and Execute right for alttab.dll by default.

15 hours ago, shae said:

Not sure how beneficial that is instead of admin with UAC on.

This excludes the possibility of a semi-automatic pressing 'Yes' for an unwanted action. Also, if a third person has access to your computer he/she won't be able to spoil something accidentally.

[Clean Alt-Tab for Win8: desktop item and thumbnails removed]

19 minutes ago, shae said:

Replacing the DLL worked for me in the past

That's what I'm asking you of, how did you replace it in a working system? I have reviewed the whole topic from the start but didn't notice anything like how-to. The dll can't be replaced neither on-the-fly nor in Safe Mode. Through the command line in RE - yes, it's possible.

24 minutes ago, shae said:

I don't mind helping out if it can be done quickly enough, but this is too time consuming.
The whole thing here started as something for my own use. It's not like it's a "product" or anything.

OK but sad to hear.

25 minutes ago, shae said:

I guess you're running a non-standard user configuration? I never saw UAC prompts changing the user. It just elevated the same one.

I work under the limited account. That is, I can't elevate by just clicking 'Yes' in UAC prompt, I need to enter the user name and the password of an admin account.

[Clean Alt-Tab for Win8: desktop item and thumbnails removed]

 The OS wouldn't let you to, even in Safe Mode.

16 minutes ago, shae said:

Not sure why you would need the recovery env?

How do you replace original alttab.dll with the patched one?

16 minutes ago, shae said:

do you mean that even if there was a patched DLL for the latest 8.1 32-bit it wouldn't be good?

I might have done it if it were quick enough to do, but even just patching the DLL would take a while.
Then, if you also mean the memory patcher utility, it would take much more. It probably can't be compiled to 32-bit without modification.

I always agree to wait for the proper complete solution. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

May I ask you to take a look at my previous requests, too? I mean the check for the explorer.exe's initialization and Z-order.

By the way I found out why I had transparent windows on Alt-Tab with Aero Peek off. It's per-user setting but if you go changing it in the "normal" way (Win+Pause - Advanced system settings) under a limited account you'll get the UAC prompt. Accordingly, you'll be changing the settings for the user you'll enter the credential for, not yours. So you need to run SystemPropertiesPerformance.exe instead.

[Clean Alt-Tab for Win8: desktop item and thumbnails removed]

On 12/4/2017 at 10:18 AM, shae said:

What happens if you try the old Win8 patched DLL?
 

It shows Search pane along other icons. Also, I was able to replace the original dll only through recovery environment which is definitely not an option.

On 12/4/2017 at 10:18 AM, shae said:

But ultimatly, why not use x64 Windows?

 

Actually I do, but there are cases when using x64 OS gives nothing but perfomance degradation, for example in virtual machines with a low amount of memory that are intended to run only x86 apps.

[Clean Alt-Tab for Win8: desktop item and thumbnails removed]

Can you please make a version for Win8.1 x86?

[Clean Alt-Tab for Win8: desktop item and thumbnails removed]

Hm. So other windows don't get transparent on Alt-Tab for you if Peek is off?

[Clean Alt-Tab for Win8: desktop item and thumbnails removed]

9 hours ago, shae said:

Did you try unchecking "Enable Peek" under System Properties \ Advanced \ Performance \ Settings?

Yes I did.

9 hours ago, shae said:

crashes don't happen often

Actually it does, at least with Classic Shell.

9 hours ago, shae said:

Doesn't Winlogon event 1002 happen only after explorer.exe has loaded?

Its description is "The shell stopped unexpectedly and explorer.exe was restarted" so I believe it does.

9 hours ago, shae said:

I haven't checked in detail the Z-order changes, but I guess it's not something I encounter often.

It's a very handy feature as you may easily call the last minimized window without breaking the order of MRU windows. I just checked - it is broken now even with a small number of open windows: a minimized window is the one that gets activated on Alt-Tab. A completely senseless change.

I just thought - can these garbage tasks that are visible in Alt-Tab menu when AltTabSettings value is set to 1 in the registry be hidden in a way? It would solve broken Z-order and flashing windows issues without deep changes - for those who don't need thumbnails.

[Clean Alt-Tab for Win8: desktop item and thumbnails removed]

Disabling Peek doesn't help. I disabled it (desktop isn't being showed by moving the mouse cursor to the bottom right corner of the screen) but selecting an icon in Alt-Tab window still causes all windows except the corresponding one to disappear.

Another problem is broken Z-order mentioned above. You can check that it is really broken: open 21 apps, then minimize a window, then press Alt-Shift-Tab. With properly working Z-order, you would change to the window you just minimized. In reality, you won't.

It's worth to add a scheduled task that will launch CleanAltTab on explorer.exe restart:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<Task version="1.2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2004/02/mit/task">
  <RegistrationInfo>
    <Date>2017-04-25T22:21:30.7837079</Date>
    <Author>RYA\Admin</Author>
  </RegistrationInfo>
  <Triggers>
    <EventTrigger>
      <Enabled>true</Enabled>
      <Subscription>&lt;QueryList&gt;&lt;Query Id="0" Path="Application"&gt;&lt;Select Path="Application"&gt;*[System[Provider[@Name='Microsoft-Windows-Winlogon'] and EventID=1002]]&lt;/Select&gt;&lt;/Query&gt;&lt;/QueryList&gt;</Subscription>
    </EventTrigger>
  </Triggers>
  <Principals>
    <Principal id="Author">
      <GroupId>S-1-5-32-545</GroupId>
      <RunLevel>LeastPrivilege</RunLevel>
    </Principal>
  </Principals>
  <Settings>
    <MultipleInstancesPolicy>IgnoreNew</MultipleInstancesPolicy>
    <DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>true</DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>
    <StopIfGoingOnBatteries>true</StopIfGoingOnBatteries>
    <AllowHardTerminate>true</AllowHardTerminate>
    <StartWhenAvailable>false</StartWhenAvailable>
    <RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>false</RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>
    <IdleSettings>
      <StopOnIdleEnd>true</StopOnIdleEnd>
      <RestartOnIdle>false</RestartOnIdle>
    </IdleSettings>
    <AllowStartOnDemand>true</AllowStartOnDemand>
    <Enabled>true</Enabled>
    <Hidden>false</Hidden>
    <RunOnlyIfIdle>false</RunOnlyIfIdle>
    <WakeToRun>false</WakeToRun>
    <ExecutionTimeLimit>P3D</ExecutionTimeLimit>
    <Priority>7</Priority>
  </Settings>
  <Actions Context="Author">
    <Exec>
      <Command>C:\Programs\CleanAltTab\cAltTab.cmd</Command>
    </Exec>
  </Actions>
</Task>

cAltTab.cmd:

@echo off
color 00
:Loop
for /f "skip=1" %%A in ('tasklist /fi "imagename eq explorer.exe"') do (
  >nul ping -n 2 127.0.0.1
  "%~dp0cAltTab.exe" /s=11
  echo OK.
  exit /b
)
if errorlevel 1 echo Waiting for explorer.exe to appear...
>nul ping -n 1 127.0.0.1
goto Loop

If you'll implement waiting for explorer.exe this batch file won't be required.

[Clean Alt-Tab for Win8: desktop item and thumbnails removed]

shae, thanks for your hard work! Hope this tool is still under development. I tried the current version. It works but unfortunately on-the-fly switching between windows makes it almost unusable for me. Why to flash with windows until the needed one is chosen (a question to M$)? Please add the possibility to disable this "great" feature.