Aero Glass for Win8.1 RTM RC3

[MrGRiM]

Sorry mate, doesn't work at all for me, tells me the shell32.dll and themecpl.dll are not compatible and asks me if I want to retry downloading the symbols but it's still no good, just keeps on trying and restarting DWM till it logs off again and starts all over again, uninstalled it now

And yes I do have a license and it did download the symbols but they just don't work.

Edited September 20, 2013 by MrGRiM

[NoelC]

Looks nice, BigMuscle. Inactive windows are a good bit "glassier" looking than with the previous version. I like that. All in all it looks quite polished. Good job!

I haven't experimented with ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity yet.

-Noel

[NoelC]

ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity works great too, and is nicely variable per the setting. I ended up settling on 75 (decimal), though even at 100 it's not overwhelming. It actually helps a bit with the visibility of the titles in the active Explorer or Wordpad window (i.e., those with ribbons), as long as the background isn't really dark. And the background windows stay nice and transparent.

-Noel

Edited September 20, 2013 by NoelC

[bigmuscle]

Sorry mate, doesn't work at all for me, tells me the shell32.dll and themecpl.dll are not compatible and asks me if I want to retry downloading the symbols but it's still no good, just keeps on trying and restarting DWM till it logs off again and starts all over again, uninstalled it now

And yes I do have a license and it did download the symbols but they just don't work.

a) symbols downloading does not work for explorer stuff (shell32/themecpl)

b) Win8.1 version does not install explorer stuff, so you installed anything but not "Aero Glass for Win8.1"

[MrGRiM]

Sorry mate, doesn't work at all for me, tells me the shell32.dll and themecpl.dll are not compatible and asks me if I want to retry downloading the symbols but it's still no good, just keeps on trying and restarting DWM till it logs off again and starts all over again, uninstalled it now

And yes I do have a license and it did download the symbols but they just don't work.

a) symbols downloading does not work for explorer stuff (shell32/themecpl)

B) Win8.1 version does not install explorer stuff, so you installed anything but not "Aero Glass for Win8.1"

Well I have no idea what your trying to tell me, I know that symbols is to make dwm work I was just letting you know the error messages I kept getting, there were a couple of others as well, but at the end of the day the first alpha runs great so I would expect the 2nd alpha to run even better with the required symbols, I just don't see why the this version would have problems with anything I installed, not even sure if that's what your implying though, are you trying to say that there is nothing wrong with this version and it's my setup that's the problem?

[bigmuscle]

I'm simply saying that Aero Glass for Win8.1 is not dependent on shell32/themecpl so if you are getting error about these libraries you have not installed Aero Glass for Win8.1 but something different.

[MrGRiM]

I'm simply saying that Aero Glass for Win8.1 is not dependent on shell32/themecpl so if you are getting error about these libraries you have not installed Aero Glass for Win8.1 but something different.

Edit: I am an id***, sorry BM, you are right I installed the wrong one, I made it into a installer and I had it in the same folder as 1.2 and installed that one by mistake, sorry for wasting your time.

Edited September 20, 2013 by MrGRiM

[Hancoque]

I have problems using alpha 2. At first launch the title bar text is messed up. The text has a black background. After some time an error message pops up:

Your DWM is incompatible with Aero Glass!
See debug log for more details.

Do you want to retry symbols downloading?

This is the debug log:

[0x224] DBGHELP: [0x224] Uninstalling...[0x11E4] License file loaded[0x11E4] Machine ID: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX[0x11E4] License code: 0[0x11E4] Hook (api-ms-win-core-registry-l1-1-0.dll!RegQueryValueExW from dwm.exe) installed[0x11E4] Hook (USER32.dll!CreateWindowExW from dwm.exe) installed[0x11E4] Hook (GDI32.dll!CreateRoundRectRgn from udwm.dll) installed[0x11E4] Hook (USER32.dll!DrawTextW from udwm.dll) installed[0x11E4] Hook (GDI32.dll!CreateBitmap from udwm.dll) installed[0x11E4] Delayed hook (UxTheme.dll!GetThemeStream from udwm.dll) installed[0x11E4] Aero Glass for Win8.1 Alpha 2 correctly loaded.[0x218] Propagating user logon successful.[0x470] DBGHELP: Symbol Search Path: .;SRV*D:\AeroGlass\symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols[0x470] CTopLevelWindow::UpdateOcclusionHints hooked successfuly[0x470] CGlassColorizationParameters::AdjustWindowColorization failed (0).[0x470] DBGHELP: .\uDWM.pdb - file not found[0x470] DBGHELP: .\dll\uDWM.pdb - file not found[0x470] DBGHELP: .\symbols\dll\uDWM.pdb - file not found[0x470] DBGHELP: uDWM.pdb - file not found[0x470] DBGHELP: udwm - no symbols loaded[0x470] Failed to load symbol module udwm.dll: 0[0x470] CDrawingContext::DrawGlass failed (0).[0x470] CDrawingContext::DrawGlass failed (0).[0x470] DBGHELP: .\dwmcore.pdb - file not found[0x470] DBGHELP: .\dll\dwmcore.pdb - file not found[0x470] DBGHELP: .\symbols\dll\dwmcore.pdb - file not found[0x470] DBGHELP: dwmcore.pdb - file not found[0x470] DBGHELP: dwmcore - export symbols[0x470] Failed to load symbol module dwmcore.dll: 0

If I choose to retry, nothing changes, but if I cancel, the title bar text appears normal. Another problem is that transparency isn't working at all.

EDIT

I have found the cause of the problems. I didn't know that I have to use the other files from the release for Windows 8.0 as it wasn't necessary in alpha 1.

Now I have another question: When I use the colour intensity slider, the values can only be between 1A (26) and D9 (217). Is it possible to use these values instead of 00 and FF to define full transparency and full opacity? That would make it easier to use, as it's currently impossible to use full opacity with the slider. Also, is it possible to disable transparency of inactive windows when foreground windows are fully opaque? Personally I would prefer it if the transparency of inactive windows is somehow tied to the transparency of foreground windows, unless explicitly overwritten in the registry.

Edited September 21, 2013 by Yzöwl
consecutive posts merged

[bigmuscle]

Hancoque: ah, my mistake - I forgot that dbghelp.dll and symsrv.dll needs to be present in the folder.

The range of intensity slider is controlled by control panel itself and not by DWM. I don't plan to modify the control panel in Win8.1.

[Hancoque]

The range of intensity slider is controlled by control panel itself and not by DWM. I don't plan to modify the control panel in Win8.1.

Yes, but the slider gives you values between 26 and 217 and you use values between 0 and 255. So, wouldn't it be possible for you to use the value range provided by the slider for minimum and maximum opacity? Right now I have to use the registry or modify the .theme file to set the theme to full opacity. In the previous version I could simply move the slider fully to the right to achieve full opacity. Actually, I had quite some trouble getting the same visual result as with alpha 1. I had to use a combination of ColorizationBlurBalanceInactive, ColorizationColorBalanceInactive and ColorizationColorInactive to make the theme look like with apha 1 (or vanilla Windows 8 - if no glow, transparency and theme file is used). In alpha 1 I didn't even have to create those registry keys for it too look like the default Windows 8 behaviour (fully opaque light grey window borders).

This was my journey to get back the look of alpha 1:

First, I noticed that using the slider, full opacity wasn't possible.

After modifying the opacity value by hand, it worked (ColorizationColor=FF...).

But then I noticed that inactive windows were still transparent.

So I changed the inactive window opacity (ColorizationBlurBalanceInactive=100). But then it was too dark.

So I tried to change the color (ColorizationColorInactive=FFEBEBEB). But it was still too dark.

Finally I also changed the color intensity (ColorizationColorBalanceInactive=100).

I would call that quite tedious to simply get back the default Windows 8 behaviour.

Ideally it would work this way (for me at least): If the slider is set fully to the right, there would be no difference to the original theme, except the possibility to use text glow and another window theme file. Moving the slider to the left would make both active an inactive windows more transparent (either equally or with a certain formula that makes the inactive window more transparent than the active window - with both being fully opaque at the rightmost slider setting).

Edited September 21, 2013 by Hancoque

[NoelC]

... the slider gives you values between 26 and 217

Wow, I didn't notice that before. We are left to wonder why Microsoft would put effort into making such a change. More of their gradual "weaning" away from allowing users to customize the UI at all?

When does that ridiculousness end? When there's one and only one UI look and feel, I guess. Definitely goes against everything BigMuscle is doing.

-Noel

[Hancoque]

Noel, that was already the case in Windows 7, if I remember correctly.

[bigmuscle]

The slider has been generating alpha value from 26 to 217 since Win7 and it has not been changed at all. Explorer process generates ColorBalance, AfterGlowBalance and BlurBalance from this alpha value and the computation depends whether transparency is enabled or not. Win8 generates values for full opacity only. My Aero Glass for Win8 changes the algorithm so it generates for transparency only. However, for several reasons, I do not want to modify this algorithm in Win8.1 (so it generates values for opacity only) and I use alpha value directly. I compared to Win7 and the slider does not set full transparency/opacity either - and I think it should be that way (if someone wants full transparency I don't see the reason to install AeroGlass).

The only problem I see that we must respect the theme settings - ColorBalance and BlurBalance for inactive windows is 20% (or whatever the theme set) of active values. If you set ColorBalanceInactive or BlurBalanceInactive then it won't respect the theme settings but will take your values directly.

[David13]

Hi everyone, this is my first post.
First of all, a big thank to bigmuscle who is fixing Microsoft bul***** with this very nice piece of software. (I made a little donation)

Ok now the noob questions ....

I used Alpha 1 with no prob at all

Now i installed Alpha 2, and here comes the noob questions :-)

1 - after a first few error msgs i found out i had to copy dbghelp.dll, symsrv.dll, symsrv.yes
what's the meaning of that symsrv file ? what's the dif between 0 and 1 Inside ?

2 - should I add that reg file to my registry ? swatches_hkcu.reg

3 - The blur is gone , it was there with Alpha 1, but it's gone with Alpha 2. I can make the Windows more or less transparent with the slider in Personnalize -> Color -> Color intensity, but no more blur ...
I tried to add a few settings in my registry wich looks like that at this moment:
Blur Deviation 30

ColorizationBlurBalance 50

ColorizationBlurBalanceInactive 50

ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity 50

RoundRectRadius 12

Is there something wrong ?

4 - You talk about a slider in control panel , you refer to the one i just talked about in question 3 ? Personnalize -> Color -> Color intensity ?

5 - Theme file, which one should I use to made my Windows look as much as possible to Seven ?
"Windows 8 6.2.9200 defult with glow effect around Windows titles" ( Win8rtm_glow.png) ?

Thanks in advance for enlightening me ;-)

Edited September 21, 2013 by David13

[Hancoque]

bigmuscle: I see. I forgot that transparency checkbox in Windows 7 and that you have to uncheck it to achieve full opacity.