[OLD] Aero Glass for Win8.1+

[Wolfshadow]

All of this discussion is very bizarre to me. I have used bigmuscle's AeroGlass for a good while now, and have been extremely pleased with it. People that don't like it should just not use it, or create their own. I would gladly donate to bigmuscle except for the fact that my wife is on disability, and I am her caretaker, so money is extremely tight. I eagerly anticipate the next version that you are working on, bigmuscle, and will gladly install it!

I would not worry about it. I do not see him taking Tihiy to task for his programs, just Bigmuscle. That is what I think is bizarre, unless of course it is because BM is asking for donations to eliminate the watermark and debug screen, where Tihiy is not.

[Wolfshadow]

The important take-away that I see here is that if Aero Glass for Win 8 WERE to get wildly popular, there are measures that should probably be taken to ensure that it can resist some attempts by OTHER software/malware to take It over. Otherwise it could become a more or less "easy ride" for malware to get in. Lest you the the probability of that is low, consider: That people already have tried to hack it to remove the reminders says that there are people out there already looking at it with nefarious motives. It sucks but this is the world we live in.

-Noel

I concur. I think when BM has 'The utility is completely integrated into Desktop Window Manager without breaking any system protection or modifying system files.' on his page is aphelions issue. That and the fact of the watermark. He has monopolized this forum to the point that people are really paranoid.

As I stated earlier, I do not see him taking Tihiy to task.

[Chris123NT]

I AM NOT GOING TO USE DWMGlass.dll UNTIL IT IS MADE CLEAR WHAT aphelion IS TALKING ABOUT.

CAN MY PC BE HACKED / TAKEN OVER BY bigmuscle WITH DWMGlass.dll ?

The chances of your PC being hacked by glass are much less than with any other app that does things under the hood. You should see the shit that stardock apps do.

You have a better chance of having aliens bust down your door and poke you with anal probes within the next 5 minutes.

[aphelion]

The important take-away that I see here is that if Aero Glass for Win 8 WERE to get wildly popular, there are measures that should probably be taken to ensure that it can resist some attempts by OTHER software/malware to take It over. Otherwise it could become a more or less "easy ride" for malware to get in. Lest you the the probability of that is low, consider: That people already have tried to hack it to remove the reminders says that there are people out there already looking at it with nefarious motives. It sucks but this is the world we live in.

-Noel

I concur. I think when BM has 'The utility is completely integrated into Desktop Window Manager without breaking any system protection or modifying system files.' on his page is aphelions issue. That and the fact of the watermark. He has monopolized this forum to the point that people are really paranoid.

As I stated earlier, I do not see him taking Tihiy to task.

I would love to. But, lawyers

Not an issue here. Yes, sad. but a fact of life

edit: I have said Tihiy's "sfotware" compromises security far more, I even posted a whole explanation with the certifcates. But I didnt pots the SC certs because even that creates create liability given a loose enough interpretation. The commands are provided in that pots to see them, as well as what to look for in process monitor to see its actions SIB not only hijacks some processes but hooks them and uses them to deliberately override system policies explicitly set to bypass proxy server settings, firewall settings, and even resorts to using the core SYstem process (PID 4) to send TCP requests. after denied repeatedly the access. If it fails on IPv4 it goes to v6 to obfustate the destination. Russia and almots half the world has to be blocked if using a broad netmask, so I am compiling a list of IP address ranges that I will publish when I am confident I hav eall of them, to keep that fro mhappening.

Now that its clear there's more than one wrong thing in the world, there iare also many good ones. I report several bugs to Actual Tools, not far from Tihiy. Their CEO responds directly with none of the back and forth. Even when I get frustrated by lack of pprogress and decide to list out a half dozen bugs at a time, what do I get? Emails thta confirm each one as being in progress for a fix in the next release.

This is not the only forum where I report bugs, just the same as its not the only software I use. It is by far the most hostlity of any of the others. And by it there's only one it for the most part as the others are just 3 or 4 people dropping in to try to understand what's going on. Which is certainly undestandable given my shared concern

Edited May 2, 2014 by aphelion

[shelter]

Like someone would target Aeroglass for hacking attempts, sorry but I find that unlikely.

[LasseSL500]

I want to thank the developer of Aero Glass for this nice effort. Fact is: without it I would NOT have used Windows 8. I may be peculiar, but I really sincerely dislike the Win8 look without glass and glow -- enough to refuse to use it actually.

But now - thanks to Aero Glass - I enjoy Windows 8!

I made a contribution, and I encourage others to do the same: buy the guy a nice lunch to thank him for resolving Microsoft's strange stand in this matter - to force an ugly UI on paying customers! Glass and glow worked fine in Win7 and should OF COURSE be a choice for paying customers - NOT some boss inside Microsoft !!

Thanks for correcting this, BigMuscle! Take care, and may the source be with you.

Edited May 2, 2014 by LasseSL500

[NoelC]

Well said, LasseSL500. Only thing I would add is "and drop shadow", which a custom themeatlas file can bring to the party with the help of BigMuscle's software.

-Noel

[truexfan81]

Noel i'm on a athlon II x2 245 with 4GB ram, i notice 0 difference in performance when running bigmuscle's aeroglass

edit: umm oops wrong thread sorry

Edited May 2, 2014 by truexfan81

[McKay91]

McKay91: if Aero Glass is really uninstalled, it means no DWMGlass.dll is loaded into DWM, then this problem is not caused by Aero Glass. The most probable reason is that you applied some 3rd party tweak during Aero Glass period which results in this behaviour after AG was uninstalled.

After closer inspection it appears a process from AeroGlass remains and is loading whenever I log in. Aeroglass had put this .exe file in C:/Windows.

I've deleted it and now the graphical bug has stopped, thank you anyway for the speedy response. I thoroughly enjoyed your software, worked beautifully for me right until the Update 1 for 8.1

Edited May 2, 2014 by McKay91

[raiden89]

WinAeroGlass is NOT part of BigMuscle's tool in any way. It's another third party (alpha) project that was started to bring glass/blur back to Windows 8.

Here's the link. http://winaero.com/comment.php?comment.news.204

This software pales in comparison to AeroGlass by BigMuscle and isn't included with his tool.

[McKay91]

WinAeroGlass is NOT part of BigMuscle's tool in any way. It's another third party (alpha) project that was started to bring glass/blur back to Windows 8.

Here's the link. http://winaero.com/comment.php?comment.news.204

This software pales in comparison to AeroGlass by BigMuscle and isn't included with his tool.

This was a clean install, I've never used that software before.

[raiden89]

Then you had to have gotten the Aero Glass from a third party source. BM's download doesn't have it and doesn't need it. Every road points to a user error on your part, bud.

[Nickygamer]

bigmuscle, i found a way to get the blur back in the taskbar in windows 8.1 update 1. i use startisback, and what i have found is that when you disable taskbar transparency in startisback config, the taskbar blurs just like the windows. don't know if it's a reg setting or what, but i thought it might be helpful. i am using the debug version of dwmglass.dll

Edited May 3, 2014 by Nickygamer

[dhjohns]

bigmuscle, i found a way to get the blur back in the taskbar in windows 8.1 update 1. i use startisback, and what i have found is that when you disable taskbar transparency in startisback config, the taskbar blurs just like the windows. don't know if it's a reg setting or what, but i thought it might be helpful. i am using the debug version of dwmglass.dll

Or you can use Opaque Taskbar from Winaero.com.

[aphelion]

Like someone would target Aeroglass for hacking attempts, sorry but I find that unlikely.

No reason to do that. The method (caught by heuristics and HIPS) looks at memory for privileged processes (system integrity first then high integrity), finds their autorun point (autoruns.exe gives an idea how quickly that is done), checks permissions and overrides. Why target any one particular filename? That is unlikely, I agree

Would a list of exploits that do this already convince you?

Edit: fontsize keeps shifting every paragraph, anyone else getting that?

Edited May 3, 2014 by aphelion