Windows 7 Centered Titlebar Text

[Martin24]

I know this question probably is posted in wrong section in the forum because it's about Windows 7. But I have been doing a lot of internet searching and I found practically nothing about this anywhere.

So I want to ask here because I think the knowledge about this is highest in this thread. It would be very interesting if @bigmuscle or maybe anyone else here can answer my question.

My question is if it's possible to get the titlebar text center aligned in Windows 7? I mean like it looks like in Windows 8 and also possible in Windows 10 with Aero Glass for Win8.1+.

I guess dwm.exe must be edited in some way to make it work. I copied dwm.exe to desktop with help of Raw File Copier Pro https://www.novirusthanks.org/products/raw-file-copier-pro/. Without it I couldn't either copy or edit the file, not even in safe mode.

I have no programming knowledge but I can edit dwm.exe in hex editor HxD https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/ if someone knows exactly what's need to be edited to make the text centered.

I hope the solution is that easy to only edit dwm.exe. But I have no idea, maybe much more is required to make it work.

[UCyborg]

On 1/16/2019 at 5:25 AM, Martin24 said:

I guess dwm.exe must be edited in some way to make it work.

The actual rendering code is likely located in either dwmcore.dll or uDWM.dll.

On 1/16/2019 at 5:25 AM, Martin24 said:

But I have no idea, maybe much more is required to make it work.

Probably.  Doesn't look like simple hex editing would be able to accomplish it.

[Martin24]

Have you looked any further into this? Is there any chance to make it work or is it way too complicated?

[UCyborg]

It would require hacking the DWM, which is beyond my capabilities. The settings for text alignment in the .msstyles file are respected for all windows only with DWM disabled.

[Martin24]

Yes, I suspected that it would be hard to do. I will try more if I maybe can find the solution at some other site. If I do I will post it here.

[UCyborg]

It can be done with WindowBlinds, there's the option in the accompanying application for developing themes/skins (SkinStudio).

Edited February 3, 2019 by UCyborg
Added another screenshot

[Martin24]

Thanks for the tip! I actually purchased WindowBlinds already back in 2010 but at that time my computer were so old so running WindowBlinds slowed down the computer so much so I couldn't use it.

Then I have forgot about that program so I haven't tried it in 9 years. But now when I installed it on my brand new computer it runs smoothly without problems.

It seems to have extremely many options so it can be played around with in very many hours. So far I have only tested to center captions and it worked great.

I have looked around but I haven't find any option to just import an .msstyles file. I still use that beautiful theme "Longhorn EV savoury.msstyles" you helped me with before. I want to import that theme and then make the caption change but it doesn't seem possible to do that. But maybe it's there somewhere but I haven't find it yet. Have you seen any kind of import option for msstyles files?

[UCyborg]

I only tried a trial version a year or two ago. AFAIK, it uses its own way to store resources without depending on .msstyles in any way to make it easier to deploy the same skin on multiple Windows versions. I don't remember seeing any option to import the existing .msstyles file. Probably the only way is to make a new skin in SkinStudio using resources exported from existing .msstyles file.

[Martin24]

I have found a converter for msstyles to WindowBlinds but it only supports msstyles files from XP and not Windows 7.

https://forums.stardock.com/374169/msstyle-support

https://forums.wincustomize.com/366658/windowblinds-7-skinning-in-an-aero-world

https://forums.stardock.com/389025/converting-msstyles-with-skinstudio7

https://forums.stardock.com/488118/page/1/#3708036