Aero Glass Tweaker GUI for Win8 v1.3.2

[Dahaka]

Here is the updated file : http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/9643/stream986finalclosefix.png

Super-Thanks for your contribution to the restoring of the Windows 7 Aero Experience!

Could you fix the same issue for the Windows with one red-close button?

Edited April 15, 2013 by Dahaka

[ORelio]

I dont' think that's possible as the same glow image is used for regular close buttons and small close button.

If I resize the glow effect, the regular one will be too small ^^"

[pengipete]

@Orelio...

Thanks for the "Windows Colours" addition in 1.2.1

I'm struggling with D3D settings - blur has no effect. I've been fiddling about with the registry values to try and work out exactly how D3D applies the blur (it seems to be a horribly convoluted mixture of different keys and values). If you can tell me which keys and settings AGT is adjusting to set the blur in D3D, maybe I can play around a bit and try to help work out a way to get it working.

(In D2D mode, AGT and AG work wonderfully - and I must admit, I'm not even sure why BM regards D3D as "better" - but I'm no ex-spurt )

[bigmuscle]

I already said it. DWM itself draws visual components into Direct3D surface. In Direct2D mode, you must create different layer where you redirect Direct3D component, process Direct2D rendering and then render everything back into Direct3D surface. With this you must maintain many resources such as DXGI surface to provide D3D-D2D interoperability. Even Direct2D is just an API above Direct3D 11, so it becomes complicated as hell.

In Direct3D mode, you just set vertex buffer, vertex shader, pixel shader, constant buffers and render. That's all.

Yeah, the DWM colorization is a bit complicated. In fact, the final color is computed as (ColorizationColor * ColorizationColorBalance / 100), then afterglow color and blur balance is applied. The final result is then influenced by blur weights. But pixel shaders and DWM completely take care about this. Unfortunately, in Win8 RTM, the color (and balance) is always managed and computed for opaque frames. The next version will change the algorithm to the original one which computes for transparent frames.

Edited April 15, 2013 by bigmuscle

[pengipete]

So is it "better" in the results it produces, "better" in terms of lower use of resources or "better" in terms of more elegant programming?

As a user/observer, it appears that the D2D mode actually produces a more pleasing result - so what's actually the downside - for the end-user - of not bothering with HOW the effect is achieved?

[ORelio]

So is it "better" in the results it produces, "better" in terms of lower use of resources or "better" in terms of more elegant programming?

As a user/observer, it appears that the D2D mode actually produces a more pleasing result - so what's actually the downside - for the end-user - of not bothering with HOW the effect is achieved?

it's better in terms of resource usage (3x faster to draw) AND in terms of elegant programming ^^

Edited April 15, 2013 by ORelio

[ORelio]

(oops, duplicate post)

Edited April 15, 2013 by ORelio

[MrGRiM]

I dont' think that's possible as the same glow image is used for regular close buttons and small close button.

If I resize the glow effect, the regular one will be too small ^^"

Yeah I already knew about this problem, could be one of the reasons MS decided to remove the glow as they made the lone close button smaller in Windows 8, if there was a way to make the lone button larger as it was in 7 then it's possible it could be fixed but pretty sure it's not possible just by editing the msstyles.

[CKyHC]

For me 0.3 version is most stable, no popups, and i use d2d because 0.3 version is single when windows are created already transparent. In newest versions windows creates (at least for me) standart win8 interface, and after little period of time it became with aero effect, but it visible by eye... One bug - black screen may occure, but not often...

[Blackbird256]

I recommend ver. 0.3 in direct2D mode with GUI ver. 1.1 for best results without annoying popups.

So just to clarify. In 0.3 with your tweaker there is no cmd window on startup? So it basically opens the loader, black screen, hides it and your tool is in tray. Correct? Because if it works like that I'm definitely switching until popups are removed

[ORelio]

If you are using Explorer7 the CMD window is hidden, otherwise the window is only minimized in taskbar. The tool does not stay in tray, once job is done it closes.

Finally found a workaround to hide the CMD window, yay! If you are using Ex7forW8, killing & restarting it unpins the CMD window from the taskbar.

This does not works with windows 8's regular explorer since it automatically re-catch the opened windows and re-pin them to the taskbar.

Released this workaround in AGTweaker 1.1.

It was hard to implement since I had to find out how to start a process under the current user credentials from an admin/elevated process

Edited April 15, 2013 by ORelio

[Blackbird256]

Oh I didn't know about the Ex7forW8 dependancy. I'll try it later then

OK that did the trick. Wish it was easy to find value which makes these popups

Edited April 16, 2013 by Blackbird256

[ORelio]

Yes, that was easy to find. DWMGlass.dll injects into csrss.exe and use MessageBoxW() function from user32.dll (Windows API) to trigger popups every ~1h.

As csrss is a system process you can't kill it without crashing Windows, that's why bigmuscle chose this process to handle the popup system.

Of course, as this process starts with windows, enabling Glass after Windows startup should disable popups as long as you don't reboot.

Edited April 16, 2013 by ORelio

[Blackbird256]

How did you find it? Thats some impressive work. Aha you can see it in Hex Editor.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Blackbird256

[bigmuscle]

Except the thing that DWMGlass injects into every process which is linked with USER32.DLL and I don't even know what the csrss process is