xpclient

Had to install the patch again after the GA Rollup A but still works but App store installs breaks I think and start giving a 0x80070241 error.

Yeah it took almost a year to develop the Windows 7 style menu and several months of testing without compromising functionality. The automatic updating hasn't been rolled out yet because a lot of people don't try the betas and RCs and then when 4.0 is declared as RTM, they directly try it and all the real issues and bugs start getting reported. Ivo might do a quick 4.0.1 update and then everyone will start getting the update notification.

That is a screenshot of a visual style I used on Windows 8: http://xxinightxx.deviantart.com/art/Aero-8-350491112 It hasn't been updated yet for Windows 8.1 according to its author but you could keep a watch when he does. If you have BigMuscle's Aero Glass installed along with the patch to enable use of unsigned themes, then you can apply any custom visual style. For Classic Shell's Start Menu, you need to turn on the option "Enable Aero Glass" from the Menu Look tab. And from the Skin tab, switch to the Windows Aero skin. On Windows 8, default is the Windows 8 skin.

If the reflections are visible then it just means the skin is darker. Change its contrast and the reflections will show prominently. It doesn't automatically determine if Aero Glass is installed, you have to turn on the option "Enable Aero Glass" from the Menu Look tab. When that is on, it just skips the hack that converts the opacity from "glass" and "fullglass" to "alpha" and "fullalpha". So the Start menu renders glass like on Windows 7.

I came across this nice update released for Windows 7 SP1: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2852386 that adds the ability to Windows 7 (like Windows 8) to delete outdated/superseded Windows updates by using a new option in the Disk Cleanup wizard. Edit: Looks like MagicAndre knows about it already: http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2013/10/07/breaking-news-reduce-the-size-of-the-winsxs-directory-and-free-up-disk-space-with-a-new-update-for-windows-7-sp1-clients.aspx

Are you sure you have Aero Glass for 8.1 installed correctly? Are your title bars transparent? You can use any skin which has Glass support (Smoked Glass, Windows Aero, Full Glass). If Aero Glass for Win8 is correctly installed and the option checked in CSM, then your Start Menu should support transparency. Here's how it looks with the Aero skin: By reflection effect, you probably mean the stripes on the glass? How the Glass is rendered (and its effects) is something only the Aero Glass project can control. Classic Shell's option merely turns on support for it in the skins (instead of the Windows 8 like simple transparency). As for the shadow, there is a setting on the "Menu Look" tab called "Enable menu shadow" that's enabled by default.

That's right, it's closed source freeware now and is mentioned in the FAQ why: http://www.classicshell.net/faq/#general_oss It was being forked and sold with little to no modification on multiple sites, bundled with crapware, plus the skins which were always copyrighted were being redistributed without permission.

Thanks everyone. The skin format is described in detail here: http://www.classicshell.net/tutorials/skintutorial.html By 'shadow image' do you mean the mask bitmap? When you open the skin in Resource Hacker, you can expand the bitmap section to see all bitmaps and the Skin section describes which bitmap is used for what. If you are using Classic Shell along with Aero Glass for Windows 8, just enable the setting "Enable Aero Glass" from the "Menu Look" tab and make sure you are using the 'Windows Aero' skin. You can post additional skin related questions in the Classic Shell forum where other users will also help you with editing the skin.

The final stable release of Classic Shell 4.0 is released. Here's the full change log: www.classicshell.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1343&p=6978 . And oh, one more thing, we crossed 10 million downloads.

Ah thank you very much. That helped. It is that easy! I fixed my script and updated that script by Leo Davidson to get current wallpaper and delete it. (Attached to post) DeleteWallpaper.zip

So let me give you some background of my problem so you don't wonder "why would you want to do that"? Windows 7 introduced a nice slideshow feature so you can set for example, you entire Pictures library as wallpaper and have it cycle through your awesome collection. But when you install themepacks which come with multiple wallpapers in one theme, there are some pictures you don't like and wish to delete. So it would be nice while the slideshow was set, if you could determine the current wallpaper's path and delete the image if you don't like it. For Windows 7, I found a useful little script that precisely did this (http://www.pretentiousname.com/miscsoft/#delwall). The current desktop background is stored in the Registry at HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Desktop\General: String value: WallpaperSource. The script reads the current desktop background image from the registry and deletes it. Now we got Windows 8 and Microsoft as we know likes to make our lives more difficult, annoying and delete/change features just for fun. In Windows 8, the current wallpaper is no longer stored at the above mentioned registry key which is a plain string value. Instead it is stored at HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\ as a REG_BINARY value: TranscodedImageCache. So I wrote a little VBScript again to decode the REG_BINARY value and get the wallpaper source. This script is attached to this post (GetWallpaperSource.zip). But the problem is that TranscodedImageCache value also seems to store some other garbage in that value besides the image path. The value I get as output contains these extra bits I don't want before the wallpaper path begins. And my VBScript skills aren't advanced enough to read only a portion of a REG_BINARY value ignoring the initial binary data which is garbage. So my question is can anyone help me get *just* the wallpaper source in one way or the other by writing any script, VBS or PowerShell or a little program so I can delete the current wallpaper quickly?

For the apps that can't be removed (Store, PC Settings, Camera, Photos and SkyDrive), maybe the "Uninstall" in the context menu should be hidden? I tried to "Uninstall" the built-in apps just to see if could be uninstalled and they got damaged. None of them will now open and the Store app being damaged, I'll have to reinstall Windows 8.1. Not a big problem but I thought "Uninstall" should be disallowed for them.

Thank you! Someone gets it that some of these settings still applied to themes with visual styles so MS was foolish to delete the GUI for all of them. I do tweak the reg values directly but GUI always helps if I forgot or when I am lazy to do registry fiddling.

Is there a chance we can get this awesome patch to do in-memory patching instead of on-disk patching?

Would it be weird of me to ask for an option in the future that returns Aero Glass only to window titles and their frames but leaves the Windows 8.1 taskbar as it is? I kind of find only the title bars most repulsive in Windows 8.x due to their use of solid color.

Ah I used NirSoft's BlueScreenView to track down the cause of the BSOD. It was a graphics driver issue, nothing to do with your patch. Sorry for the trouble.

Btw soon after installing the patch, I got a DPC Watchdog violation BSOD which until now I never got after 7 days of use of 8.1. So I am wondering if the patch can be responsible.

Dunno what went wrong the first time I tried it but now it works. Windows 8.1 x64 Enterprise also boots fine with the patch. And the Details pane is at the bottom. Until the next Micros~hit patch comes along to break it. Thank you MrGRiM !!

Well for some reason, DOS_Probie's original script wasn't working for me on 8.1 x64 so I slightly modded it. But this "offline" method means one without internet access. MS also uses the word "offline" for DISM image servicing operations in which case this isn't applicable. @echo off&color atitle, [ + OFFLINE INSTALL OF NET 3.5 FRAMEWORK - DOS_PROBIE.2012 + ] :: =Windows 8 includes .Net 4.5 by default but not .NET 3.5 =::NOTE: INSTALLS .NET 3.5 FRAMWORK FEATURE ON DEMAND (FoD) FROM INSTALL DISC.::NetFx35.cmd:: SCAN_ACTIVE DRIVES;set "drv="for %%a in (D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z) do if exist "%%a:\bootmgr.efi" set drv=%%a:&goto :Install:Installif defined drv (echo == Installing NET 3.5 From Drive %drv%Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFX3 /All /Source:%drv%\sources\sxs /LimitAccess:: LOGdism /online /Get-FeatureInfo /FeatureName:NetFx3 >%systemdrive%\NetFx3.logecho.&echo.clsecho * DONE *echo.&echo.echo == Press any [KEY] to Close This Screen. &pause>nul) else (:: NO_DRIVEecho == No Active Drive Found!..Insert DVD or USB then Start Over. &pause>nul echo.)

I know, I read that That is why I tested it on 8.1 Enterprise x64 to let him know that the digital signature says not valid so he can develop a patch for Enterprise too if he wants

For 8.1 Enterprise x64, the digital signature for shell32.dll is shown as not valid after the patch.

What about 8.1 Enterprise?

64-bit XP is awesome if you have 64-bit drivers for all your hardware and your software which uses software drivers or shell extensions is also 64-bit. It is only based on Server 2003 but it's heavily XPized, has System Restore, Fast User Switching, Games, IIS 6.0, and all which is omitted from Server 2003. It has a number of advantages of 32-bit XP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XP_x64#Advantages One caveat of XP x64 is if have over 4 GB of addressable memory (for example, if you have 4 GB of RAM and a graphics chip with its own memory, which is inevitably the case these days) then hibernation will not be available under XP x64 unless you edit Boot.ini to add the MAXMEM switch: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=888575. Vista and Windows 7 64-bit don't have this limitation.

Excellent. I think you should do a FAQ for first-timers or those who weren't following the project and want to avoid reading 100+ pages of the MSFN topic and related threads. To surface the important information from the MSFN topic that is. This is how my Windows Codename Compromise 8 looks with it, Classic Shell and a Windows 7-like visual style: