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Vistapack 2.4 Released


damian666

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Just installed it and V2.3 didnt crash :thumbup . The last time I did that I used some older version (not sure). Anyway besides some strange looking icons everything seems to be working like a charm. pic & log allthough, the log is now unnecesary, since it works. :rolleyes:

Superb work, ive even noticed a source (i386) patcher, and thats one nifty feature.

Thanks and best regards

knofix

Edited by knofix
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aaah, yes, i see...

for some reason, the shortcut overlay is changed in a weird paper one...

thats stupid????

i never ever saw that when testing...

i will check it out man.

and about that on the desktop, it is because 2000 not tells apps to use 32bit icons.

because they are not there normally.

in the next version i will include a 32bit forcer, which makes any exe use 32bit icons.

you can also do it yourself if you want to try.

just put a file in the exe dir and rename it to : explorer.exe.32bitimgl.

this would be the name for explorer, and would force explorer to show 32bit icons even in tray.

but that one is always installed so.

just replace explorer with your exe name and your done.

damian666

Edited by damian666
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@ BeerMan

Thanks for the tip but I had done a fresh install of SP2 slipstreamed XPpro. At default the DPI is 96. I Installed Vistapack 2.3. It looked fine till I changed DPI from 96 to 120. I uninstalled Vistapack 2.3. changed DPI to 120 and reinstalled Vistapack 2.3. The result was the same. Are you running SP2? Anyhow, the problem is not with viewing resizable font. The issue is with OS applets whose geometry and font sizes are apparently hard coded and which are apparently replaced or patched when DPI 120 is selected. When you tell the OS to set DPI 120 it asks for the CD and uses a file named "dosapp.fon". The same thing happens when you go back to 96 DPI.

I've attached a pic of the display properties applet at 120 DPI vs 96 DPI. Display resolution is set to 1208X1024 as per instructions from the mfgr Princeton Graphics. That's the native (best) resolution of the flat screen. No other display settings were changed only the DPI. In the attached pic you can see that the at 96 DPI the entire applet is smaller and more of the characters in the text run into one another then at 120 DPI. Look at the "Appearence" tabs at 6X. The "A" is connected to the "p" at 96 DPI but not at 120 DPI. This makes small text appear smudged in applets at 96 DPI.

@ damian

I've noticed that the the position of the user pic seems to be the only issue. Can you tell me which file (dll, exe, etc) controls the position where that pic is displayed and where in the code to look for the positioning data? Maybe I could patch it myself :no: and if I get it to work I'd be glad to share the patch here for the apparently small minority of us who want/need to actually use the high resolutions of our flat screens. Btw, I have the same issue at 120 DPI on an Asus M3N laptop at it's optimal resolution (1024X768).

Soambah

post-120410-1205781861_thumb.jpg

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Hello,

i've installed the vistapack 2.3 everything looks ok, except when i restart the computer, every desktop icons stay together. if if have some desktop icons in upper corner, others in lower corner or else, every time i restart the computer the icons will became together, one after another.

Anyone knows whats the problem. And this occurs when the rebuild icon cache overs.

Thanks,

Pedro Varela

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I think I used something like IconRestorer when that happened to me. Not sure the one I found thru google is the same one I used but it added a right click menu item to the recycle bin to save and restore icon positions.

Worked fine

Cheers

Hello,

i've installed the vistapack 2.3 everything looks ok, except when i restart the computer, every desktop icons stay together. if if have some desktop icons in upper corner, others in lower corner or else, every time i restart the computer the icons will became together, one after another.

Anyone knows whats the problem. And this occurs when the rebuild icon cache overs.

Thanks,

Pedro Varela

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Hi, damian

RE - Vistapack at 120 DPI. I did some more testing.

Abbreviations: VP=Vistapack, vtp=Vista Transform Pack v801

Below is a summary of remaining 120 DPI issues. I've attached a rar archive containing a modded style sheet from vpt

(Windows\Resources\Themes\Windows Aero\Shell\Aero Task\shellstyle.dll). This one positions the user pic correctly at 120 DPI. I replaced it's pukey green task bar with the cool black one from the "Black" VP stylesheet.

First I used VP on the "i386" and made a bootable installation CD without any 3rd party apps. Then, I did a fresh install. At 96 DPI every thing looked fine. 120 DPI there is the user pic alignment problem. I installed the "Windows Aero" theme from vpt. It solved the 120 DPI problem with the start menu but it has other quirks that need fixing. I'd like to have elements of both VP and vpt in a single theme for 120 DPI. Is that something you could do? Like maybe include "120DPI" style sheet folders in the VP theme?

Current Issues:

1) At 120 DPI, In VP the user pic is outside of and to the left of the frame above the start menu. It's ok in vpt.

2) At both 96 and 120 DPI, the "Black" VP color scheme has no "View workgroup computers" in the task bar but vpt does.

3) vpt's "Orb" start button alignment sucks - it cuts off the top of the "Orb". VP locates the orb better.

4) Mouse "hover", file names are black and unreadable (bad) in vpt but they're white (good) in VP.

5) In vpt's "AeroTask",window control "hot spots" are misaligned. "minimize" is completely off to the left of the button.

6) Neither vpt nor VP shows recently used programs in the left (white) pane of the start menu.

This may be a gpedit thing, or an "unattended" OS installation issue unrelated to either visual style - needs more testing.

7) Neither VP nor vpt allow files to be draged and dropped into folders. Has anyone seen this before?

I could try editing HTML in the style sheet's UIFILE but I'm clueless as to the naming convention. Can you refer me to a site

that explains this?

Thanks,

Soambah

VPT801_AeroTask.rar

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hi man, thanx for testing this man...

BUT, i stink at visual styles, so if you know anyone that can do that, plesae do :D

i will check it out though, and see what i can do ok?

damian666

Edited by damian666
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Hi damian,

Well...I'm in the same boat with you vis a vis Visual Styles. I design storage and disaster recovery stuff. I'm a babe in the "graphics" woods especially since Micro$haft's theme code seems to have been reverse engineered only by those guys who built "Style Builder". I'll get that and see if I can make it do what I want, but I'd rather just change some code in the "shellstyle.dll". I'm an old time assembly programmer and all this gui software feels like "drive by wire" :wacko: programming. The problem is I havn't been able to find an explaination of how the "shellstyle.dll" works. There's something that looks like code in the "UIFILE" in the "stylesheet.dll". I ran bits of it thru an htlm decoder and found what looked like the graphics for the "minimize", "restore", and "close" buttons that are in the upper right corners of windows. I'm clueless as to how the rest of it works and everybody I know says it's MS proprietary stuff. Maybe somebody who knows something about this will run across this post and reply with some pithy information :sneaky: . Thanks for offering to look at it a bit yourself. I'll let you know when/if I come up with something.

Soambah

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Hello,

i've installed the vistapack 2.3 everything looks ok, except when i restart the computer, every desktop icons stay together. if if have some desktop icons in upper corner, others in lower corner or else, every time i restart the computer the icons will became together, one after another.

Anyone knows whats the problem. And this occurs when the rebuild icon cache overs.

Thanks,

Pedro Varela

Try Microsoft's Layout.dll (free) file, which is included in the Windows NT Resource Kit.

1. Copy layout.dll to XP's WINDOWS\system32 directory

2. Double click LAYOUT.REG to make changes to your registry

3. Right click desktop, 'Arrange Icons By', uncheck 'Auto Arrange' and 'Align to Grid'

4. Go to your desktop and arrange the icons as you like

5. Right click on My Computer or the Recycle Bin and select 'Save Desktop Icon Layout'

Icons still move but when you want the positions restored to the saved,

right click on My Computer or Recycle Bin again and select 'Restore Desktop Icon Layout'.

If you log out and back in, the icon positions will stay.

layout.zip

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Hi damian,

Well... It's been a little hectic around here and I have not yet played with Style Builder but I did fix a minor issue. Some of us like to use the "Classic" Start Menu and I noticed that the vertical OS name bar on the left edge of the menu is still the old 16 bit yucky black and blue one :realmad: that M$ pit there. I surfed around a bit and not finding anything I thru together the attached bitmap for explorer's bitmap 167. I installed it and it looks much better! Oops! it says "Vista"... :angel

Explorer_BMP_167.bmp

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