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Aero Glass for Win8 RC4


bigmuscle

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But, unfortunally, in v0.7 (beta 1) I have two problems:

[*]Black borders of inactive windows in D3D mode. As I understood, in D3D mode we need to turn opacity value to 0 in order fix this. But in this case the color of each inactive window is too bright (not just white and transparent - what we can see in D2D mode), and it is almost impossible to see window title and even it's border. So, I still use D2D mode, where everything is normal, but I want to use D3D one, considering that D2D support will be removed in future releases.

My theme is default Win8, without any modifications. Should I use theme from the Consumer Preview (if it is more optimized for aero glass)? So, in that case, can you publish your theme, or, if you hadn't modified original one, where it is possible get it? (everywhere can be found just optimized for Win7 Consumer Preview Win8 theme, but it doesn't work well on Win8).

If you want to use GlassTransparency settings, don't forget that inactive frame colour will be overplaced with ColorizationColorInactive. Thus should play with this settings. I already posted the link to the theme which I use - it is Release Preview theme.

[*]In both modes (D2D and D3D) after system restart taskbar becomes non-colorized and without blur effect (just absolutely transparent). Also taskbar becomes non-colorized after changing of any personalisation parameters. To make it colored I need to run DWMGlass again (re-apply in ORelio's AGTweaker - the only way I have found to fix problem temporarily).

Maybe I miss something here, but how do you run DWMGlass again via tweaker? This is not possible in 0.7, because the only option here is to start via AppInit_DLLs registry key.

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Thanks a lot!

I have set proper values for ColorizationColorInactive and ColorizationColorBalanceInactive, so now everything is well with inactive borders. Also found Release Preview theme, tried it, it is good, but anyway would like to stay on default RTM one (just don't like RP minimize/maximize/close images). And theme changing doesn't fixed problem with status bar transparency...

I use Aero Glass v.0.7 and AGTweaker v1.2 to reload DWMGlass64.dll. After pressing "OK" (or "Apply") process reloads and there is no need to reboot PC after any params changing. I don't want to use that GUI, but don't know any other way to avoid full-transparent taskbar. That problem exists after each PC reboot and after changing any personalization params.

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I still don't understand it. There is no way to reload DWMGlass64.dll, so I really miss what AGTweaker does. Do you use StartIsBack or any special settings? AeroGlass injects into explorer.exe and denies any request to change taskbar blur/transparency settings. Instead it forces blur to be enabled and taskbar to be completely transparent (because blurring maintains the colorization itself). So it seems that something override the blur settings.

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Yes, I used start menu, not StartIsBack, but Start8 :).

Just set function "disable taskbar translucency", and now everything is well!

What about AGTweaker - I don't know about technical side, but after pressing "OK" or "Apply" screen flashes and everything reloads with new parameters (that way I changed necessary for me registry values - and then just pressed "Apply" in AGTweaker in order to show result without restart).

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I still don't understand it. There is no way to reload DWMGlass64.dll, so I really miss what AGTweaker does. Do you use StartIsBack or any special settings? AeroGlass injects into explorer.exe and denies any request to change taskbar blur/transparency settings. Instead it forces blur to be enabled and taskbar to be completely transparent (because blurring maintains the colorization itself). So it seems that something override the blur settings.

I simply kill dwm.exe process, which makes it restart and thus reload the DLL ... as simple as that.

When activating Glass, my GUI place the correct DLL (DWMGlass32 or DWMGlass64) in C:\Windows, register it as AppInit_DLL and kill dwm.exe to instantly load the DLL.

And when disabling Aero, it does practicaly the same : unregister the DLL, kill dwm to unload it, and delete the file from C:\Windows.

Why looking for a complex method when a simple process killing trick does the magic for you ? :)

Edited by ORelio
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This is not as simple as it looks :-)

a) C:\Windows does not seem to be a good place for DLL, because dwm.exe is run under standard privileges and thus it has not write access to this location. It results that it won't be able to generate debug logs.

B) AppInit_DLLs key causes that the DLL is loaded into every process which is linked with USER32.DLL. Thus simple killing dwm.exe does not unload the library from the memory but only from the address space of the DWM process.

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I learned about AppInit_DLL while making v1.2 and know that it's loaded in every process but as dwm draws the windows, killing & restarting it causes the new settings to take effect, and that's what is the intended result.

Restarting other processes is not needed, in fact: the taskbar color is also affected without having to restart explorer.exe (don't know why, but it works :huh: )

Of course deleting the DLL often fails because it's still loaded in a process, but the GUI tries to delete it and if the access is denied the error is ignored.

Edited by ORelio
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Great work! Can't tell you how much I appreciate this! Exactly what I have been waiting for!

Just one question, is there any possibility of storing and loading default values into the DWM reg key, espeically ColorizationBlurBalance? Attempting to have a lower color intensity mixed with the automatic color settings of Win8. If I change ColorizationBlurBalance value manually and then kill/reload dwm, it takes into effect perfectly, but its value is overwritten when the desktop background is autmatically changed.4

Thank you so much and fantastic work!

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My theme is default Win8, without any modifications. Should I use theme from the Consumer Preview (if it is more optimized for aero glass)? So, in that case, can you publish your theme, or, if you hadn't modified original one, where it is possible get it? (everywhere can be found just optimized for Win7 Consumer Preview Win8 theme, but it doesn't work well on Win8).

Do you mean the RELEASE PREVIEW theme? The Conusmer Preview theme does not work.

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Nice job, Big Muscle. I'm sure the whole world of Windows 8 desktop users are waiting for you to polish this up and make it available as a turnkey product.

The reduction in usability of the Windows 8 desktop was a prime reason I chose not to upgrade, even though Microsoft practically gave away Windows 8 Pro upgrades.

For me on a dual monitor Windows 8 Enterprise VM (VMware) your little utility works great in Direct3D mode, and I was even able to tweak the Win 8 theme a bit to provide title background glow and drop shadows as well. For me, while the glass effect is nice, adding the drop shadow really makes the desktop more usable, because for whatever reason I have trouble differentiating windows without it. I even managed to add a little style to the caption buttons, just to see if I could.

It took some fooling with the various parameters, both using the Aero Glass Tweaker and the Windows Personalization\Color and Appearance dialog, but I've got this Win 8 desktop quite usable. Note that I also use some window metrics changes to reduce the borders, to make more room for work. But the glass effect is still appreciated. :)

Dual Monitor Windows 8 Screen Grab with Aero Glass for Win8 Running

I think I understand that the Windows 8 DWM is always compositing virtually transparent drop shadows (as well as other theme elements) from the theme resource set provided with Windows, and you're just replacing those resources from the PNG file upon detection of the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM:CustomThemeResource. I think it's highly significant that you've found a way to do this without any need to hack Windows or go against System Protection. Well done!

If it's of interest to anyone, here's my theme file that I used when generating the above screenshot:

Theme PNG file for use with CustomThemeResource

Keep up the great work, Big Muscle. I'll be watching your progress eagerly.

-Noel

Edited by NoelC
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When activating Glass, my GUI place the correct DLL (DWMGlass32 or DWMGlass64) in C:\Windows, register it as AppInit_DLL and kill dwm.exe to instantly load the DLL.

And when disabling Aero, it does practicaly the same : unregister the DLL, kill dwm to unload it, and delete the file from C:\Windows.

ORelio, thinking ahead to what will happen when Big Muscle makes another new build available, is there a way you could offer an option not to copy the DLL, but rather find it in the path or perhaps at a particular location identified in the registry?

That way when Big Muscle releases a new DLL, in the time before you release a new GUI it will be more convenient to test enabling and disabling it using your GUI.

By the way, I used your [Apply] button about a zillion times today to quickly kill and restart DWM so as to load updated theme content. Thanks for making that easy.

Thanks.

-Noel

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Unless bigmuscle makes significant changes, the GUI should be compatible with any upcoming version : Simply replace the dlls that come with it with the new ones and it should be allright.

To properly delete the loaded DLL it would be necesary to disable Glass (using the GUI for example), then reboot the computer, and then enable the new version by running the tweaker with the new dll.

This method should work. Glad to hear that my tool is useful for you. (For further feedback aboud the GUI, please consider posting in the asociated thread, see link in my signature :) )

Edited by ORelio
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