Aero Glass for Win8.1 RTM RC3

[goldi]

Ohhh nooo!

I hope the Final comes this year. But RC2 it´s absolutely Downgrade!

We need a Version for Win8.1 same "Glass8-1.2". Not more and in any case not less!

Hmmmmm, RC1 was so far finished...

[Hancoque]

RC2 works great so far. I couldn't reproduce a black screen yet. Might this be related to the new loading mechanism?

The only feature I might be missing is bypassing the theme signature checking, but I currently use modified DLLs as a fallback because due to the black screens I hadn't enabled Aero Glass all the time.

[bigmuscle]

Hancoque: bypassing the theme signature is the thing which causes blackscreen when custom theme is being loaded before the bypassing feature is correctly injected.

Also, theme signature bypassing has never been presented as my Aero Glass feature because it has nothing to do with DWM hook. It was meant only as debugging mean to correctly develop glass effect in all possible cases.

Edited December 14, 2013 by bigmuscle

[oomek]

Why can't you just release a RC1 without a cmd box and watermark?

It worked perfectly fine on my system.

[JayBee73]

So, this is a fairly new build to the recent one for Windows 8 (version 1.2)?

[NoelC]

Nice, the way you set up the scheduled task to run at bootup.

Runs fine, does everything I want in an Aero Glass restoral tool. Well done. After using this for a while I find I don't mind the non-blurred Taskbar.

I can see how folks who had found the theme signature bypass feature to their liking might be disappointed. I suggest you consider releasing a separate product to provide that functionality.

-Noel

Edited December 15, 2013 by NoelC

[PandaX]

8.1 x64 Pro here. Tried RC2 and RC1. Neither work. I donated a moment ago but that's irrelevant.

Installed Debugging Tools and got my symbols. Copied them into the directory of course.

Debug.log says:

[2013-12-14 15:16:32][Thread 0xB48] Hook (USER32.dll!CreateWindowExW from shell32.dll) installed[2013-12-14 15:16:32][Thread 0xB48] Hook (USER32.dll!SetWindowCompositionAttribute from explorer.exe) installed[2013-12-14 15:16:32][Thread 0xB48] Hook (dwmapi.dll!DwmEnableBlurBehindWindow from explorer.exe) installed[2013-12-14 15:16:32][Thread 0xB48] Hook (USER32.dll!LoadImageW from themecpl.dll) installed

aerohost.exe is running but there's no command dialog or watermark.

I'm curious about this too, another person I know had the same issue, but just for RC1. Downloaded the symbols, changed the right registry keys, even sent me a few screenshots showing what all he had done, but nothing, no dialog, watermark, or anything.

[MrGRiM]

AERO GLASS for Win8.1 Release Candidate 2

We are getting closer and closer to release so here is another build to test. This build makes some things to work in different way, because it does not use AppInit_DLLs registry value to load my library into memory. This requires also some other significant changes:

* simply unpack to your folder and execute install.bat with admin privileges, it will inform you with success or error message

* although you can still use AppInit_DLLs registry value to load this library, the method won't be supported anymore and library won't be tested for this functionality

With these changes, some functionality has been removed, because it cannot work - especially uxtheme.dll and explorer.exe hooks:

* bypass theme signature feature has been removed - WARNING: if you currently use unsigned theme, your system may become unbootable so restore default Windows theme at first

* taskbar won't be blurred anymore unless you use some 3rd party tweak to restore this effect (e.g. StartIsBack)

* custom swatches are not loaded and colorization control panel will fail to load if you have custom swatches applied in the registry

* all of this removed functionality may be restored in separate libraries in the future but they won't be maintained in DWMGlass.dll anymore, because they are out of scope of DWM hooking.

Some other important changes:

* this version contains hardcoded default patterns for DWM functions so you don't need DWMCORE.PDB and UDWM.PDB files unless any future Windows update changes the patterns. However, Aero Glass will work in limited mode when DWM.PDB is not present because it is needed to correctly load user settings from registry. Limited mode means that all settings are in their default values and you cannot control them in any way.

* fixed small blur glitch

Thanks for the update BM, bit sad to see swatches and bypass theme signature gone, I did test using the AppInit_DLLs registry value and the swatches still work but the images don't change, the names and colors were still correct though (would be nice if you can get this working again), as for the other changes well I guess UXstyle is fine with me, I donated to help support that project anyway so might as well use it.

Still have taskbar and start menu blur with SIB so no problems there, evrything else still seems to be working fine, caption text glow, aero glass reflection and custom theme atlas all loading and working perfectly.

I can see why you have had to remove these things to remove the need for the AppInit_DLLs registry value and to open up a wider usage base without having to alter their systems and reduce security, this was the only way forward I think, so anyway congratulations on getting this far, you have done an amazing job and for me Windows 8 would have remained a complete failure without the likes of Tihiy and yourself.

Edited December 15, 2013 by MrGRiM

[newhappy]

It seems like SecureBoot is not a problem.

[pushkar]

AERO GLASS for Win8.1 Release Candidate 2

We are getting closer and closer to release so here is another build to test. This build makes some things to work in different way, because it does not use AppInit_DLLs registry value to load my library into memory. This requires also some other significant changes:

* simply unpack to your folder and execute install.bat with admin privileges, it will inform you with success or error message

* although you can still use AppInit_DLLs registry value to load this library, the method won't be supported anymore and library won't be tested for this functionality

With these changes, some functionality has been removed, because it cannot work - especially uxtheme.dll and explorer.exe hooks:

* bypass theme signature feature has been removed - WARNING: if you currently use unsigned theme, your system may become unbootable so restore default Windows theme at first

* taskbar won't be blurred anymore unless you use some 3rd party tweak to restore this effect (e.g. StartIsBack)

* custom swatches are not loaded and colorization control panel will fail to load if you have custom swatches applied in the registry

* all of this removed functionality may be restored in separate libraries in the future but they won't be maintained in DWMGlass.dll anymore, because they are out of scope of DWM hooking.

Some other important changes:

* this version contains hardcoded default patterns for DWM functions so you don't need DWMCORE.PDB and UDWM.PDB files unless any future Windows update changes the patterns. However, Aero Glass will work in limited mode when DWM.PDB is not present because it is needed to correctly load user settings from registry. Limited mode means that all settings are in their default values and you cannot control them in any way.

* fixed small blur glitch

Thanks big muscle its a great update.

i can see blur effects with lastest windows updates installed keep it up.

I would rather like to donate but i can't due to some family restrcitions

[rocky]

I just lost the transparency after turned on laptop

Win8.1 x86

edit:

sorry, now disable on battery is working now on RC2 so I don't realize it.sorry

Edited December 15, 2013 by rocky

[Eddie2003]

RC2 runs well, but I wanna have glass on battery mode, it doesn't work

[ralcool]

So edit the registry... did you read the instructions?

edit & update;

After some testing and a few reboots, we have lost taskbar blur with ClassicShell v4.0.2 & RC2.... But it still has transparency..yay..... and it is nice, in a fresh way. (It is much cleaner without the blur effect, I am actually pleased with the new look)

But, TotalMediaTheatre v6.xxx is still affecting things... BluRay playback still disables Window shadows from the theme when actually 'playing'.

I don't know why.. Just reporting it... That is the point of this thread IIRC, bug reporting....It is a minor detail.... but I don't think I am the only user seeing this.

Great work BM...

Sean

Edited December 15, 2013 by ralcool

[MikeRL]

Top notch job as always, bigmuscle! You managed to make that major change in how Aero Glass is loaded, and everything so far works perfectly. One quick question for anyone to answer - my donation.key file will still keep this running, right? I read something on glass8.berlios.de that said no matter how much I donate it won't get rid of the time limit. I hope this doesn't mean the new version stops working after a certain amount of time. I like having it run 24/7. Not just for convenience (I can tolerate bugs) but without a constant flow of debug output being logged, I believe this would make debugging much less useful. Less running time means less caught bugs. But I could just be misunderstanding things… Anyhow bigmuscle you still do great work and everyone here seems to agree. They oughtta fire the guy that said kill Aero and put you in his position at Microsoft. Seriously. And fire the guy who said kill the start menu and replace him with Tihiy. No start menu and no aero glss is perfect on a tablet, but on a desktop or laptop it neuters both aesthetics and usability. And if MS had some more brains I'd say that they'd have known they're doing good with tablets but need to tweak stuff for desktops, laptops, and basically anything powerful enough. Hopefully the threshold update doesn't add all this back, because it would ruin the work of two hard working developers. Anyhow, please do pace yourself on these RCs. Didn't expect such a big change in the RC stage. If you're changing so much up, put in a few more at least just to ensure no bugs hit stable. And if people complain that there's no stable version, tell them to make their own application!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Edited December 15, 2013 by MikeRL

[NoelC]

Mike, as far as I can tell it continues to run indefinitely.

-Noel