Classic theme on Windows 8

[Lebowsky]

First of all, merci beaucoup beaucoup IbmPad!!

I have read through this thread (and several other ones at Facepunch, eightoforums, guru3d, etc...) about this, and I was going to try to restore the classic theme on win8 but I have a couple questions, because I think I mixed up some of the informations:

- Is running the program in the first post of this thread + classicshell enough to restore more or less everything, or is something additional needed?
- Is the program ok to run on windows 8.1 Enterprise 64bit?

I just want to make sure I'm not going to break and spend hours reverting back my company pc

thanks!

[windows.nt.win32]

- Is running the program in the first post of this thread + classicshell enough to restore more or less everything, or is something additional needed?

More or less, a few features will still be metro-ish, but it will be more like Windows 7 with the Classic Theme if you have Classic Shell.

- Is the program ok to run on windows 8.1 Enterprise 64bit?

I'm using Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit, and it works just fine for me.

[maur0]

small bug in firefox the button to close disappears where it should appear on the right. only in firefox all another program show buttons

http://i.imgur.com/VvInLOj.png

[Lebowsky]

small bug in firefox the button to close disappears where it should appear on the right. only in firefox all another program show buttons

http://i.imgur.com/VvInLOj.png

try to install firefox classic theme restorer?

[Lebowsky]

In Firefox with Classic theme Restorer you can choose the "Alternative Background Color" in the Toolbars(2) Option. This solves your issue when firefox is maxmiized. But I still get weird transparency/missing top right buttons when windowed.

maximized:


windowed:


Not sure if this is a w8classic or Firefox issue.

Other than that, w8classic is doing great!

[Lebowsky]

— Programs that use DWM like Firefox can be made to think Composition is disabled by copying the files “C:\Windows\dwmapi.dll” and “C:\Windows\dwm_rdr.dll” in the same folder than the executable (eg. firefox.exe).

also tried this, but didn't work

[maur0]

its work fine thanks IbmPad and Lebowsky

[Lebowsky]

its work fine thanks IbmPad and Lebowsky

did you get firefox looking good? both fullscreen AND windowed? how?

[maur0]

did you get firefox looking good? both fullscreen AND windowed? how?

yes, now is perfect look

window
http://i.imgur.com/byEXynS.png

and fullscreen
http://i.imgur.com/A4RlEFd.png

Download my dll (unpack 2 dll to folder firefox.exe), restart firefox and enjoy (work?)
http://www61.zippyshare.com/v/BnZVl1gl/file.html

[windows.nt.win32]

Yeah, I'm not having any problems with Firefox.

[Lebowsky]

solved it with this Stylish code:

Code: Select all

#navigator-toolbox {
  background: -moz-Dialog !important;
}

one more question: is anyone able to disable the drop shadow on the desktop icons label text? Unchecking "use drop shadows for icon labels on desktop" under System Properties -> Advanced -> Performance Settings had no effect.

[roytam1]

how can I fix chrome border when using w8classic?

[windows.nt.win32]

I have a question regarding the startup of classictheme.exe. I was wondering if it would be possible to implement this without replacing the shell (explorer.exe). Perhaps it might be possible to implement it as a service? This would make restarting explorer a lot easier, as it wouldn't require opening every program that is set to run at startup.

[IbmPad]

I don't like the method of replacing the shell but I don't know how to do otherwise. I don't think it is possible to use a service. The issues are that :
— the program has to be run inside the user session (the service could spawn a process in the user session space, so that's not a problem) ;
— it must run before Explorer (otherwise Explorer will get the W8 theme) but after LogonUI (otherwise the logon screen is broken).

Perhaps a completely different method (User32 API hooking ?) that could decide what to do on a process basis could get rid of this and solve other issues, but honestly I haven't worked on the program for a long time and probably won't in the near future…

Regarding the other questions (from Lebowsky and roytam1), I am sorry but I don't know how to help you…

[Lebowsky]

it was more of an open general question. To me your program reaches its goals perfectly.

[windows.nt.win32]

I don't like the method of replacing the shell but I don't know how to do otherwise. I don't think it is possible to use a service. The issues are that :
— the program has to be run inside the user session (the service could spawn a process in the user session space, so that's not a problem) ;
— it must run before Explorer (otherwise Explorer will get the W8 theme) but after LogonUI (otherwise the logon screen is broken).

Perhaps a completely different method (User32 API hooking ?) that could decide what to do on a process basis could get rid of this and solve other issues, but honestly I haven't worked on the program for a long time and probably won't in the near future…

Ah ok. I know Malwarebytes' starts before the shell, as that still uses the Windows 8 aero theme until the program is restarted. When that happens, it will use a transparent classic theme. Also it seems to be running as the current user, but maybe it's started by another process (there are some MBAM related processes that are running as SYSTEM). I'm not sure though.

I can actually understand you not working on this in a while. If you have other things you are working on (weather they be in real life on on the computer) that's perfectly alright. I'm just glad you included the source code. Maybe I'll take a look at it once I get some programming experience (hopefully I'll be able to take a class in the near future). But if you decide to start working on this again sometime, that would be awesome too.

Honestly the program works pretty well, so I'll be happy with it the way it is for now. Thanks again.

[windows.nt.win32]

Hey IBMPad. If it's not too much to ask, could you write a version that doesn't replace the shell? You know, where the user must start it up manually. Maybe you could add a command-line switch to open the settings dialog? Again, I hope I'm not asking too much, but this would be nice to have.

[Lebowsky]

anyone else having problems since the latest firefox updates?



edit: I don't think it's a firefox update issue, maybe a windows update that screwed some registry entries? I had the same problem with IE, but doing "patch internet explorer" in w8classic fixed it. What does this function exactly do and can I reproduce it for Firefox?

[IbmPad]

@windows.nt.win32 : I have modified the program so that you can run it manually by renaming the file to “ClassicThemeA.exe” (be sure to run it with admin rights).

@Lebowsky : I honestly don't know and cannot install the hundreds of Windows updates in my Win8 VM. Did you try to copy again the files “dwmapi.dll” and “dwm_rdr.dll” from the IE folder to the Firefox folder ? If it still doesn't work, you can try to edit the manifest in Firefox.exe using e.g. Resource Hacker and add the line “<file name="dwmapi.dll" />” before “</assembly>” (this is what “Patch IE” does, to force it to use the local dwmapi.dll file instead of the one located in System32)…

[Lebowsky]

@Lebowsky : I honestly don't know and cannot install the hundreds of Windows updates in my Win8 VM. Did you try to copy again the files “dwmapi.dll” and “dwm_rdr.dll” from the IE folder to the Firefox folder ? If it still doesn't work, you can try to edit the manifest in Firefox.exe using e.g. Resource Hacker and add the line “<file name="dwmapi.dll" />” before “</assembly>” (this is what “Patch IE” does, to force it to use the local dwmapi.dll file instead of the one located in System32)…

Added it to the manifest file, no change. I tried to remove the files from the folder, and when I do that it gets much worse, so it looks like it is loading them correctly but something else is messing up the rendering of the title bar. I also tried installing Pale Moon (other Firefox-based browser), same result.

Funnily enough, this is the only application having this issue. I'd be interested to know if other w8classic users are having this issue, but it's not a big problem anyway...

[maur0]

@Lebowsky : I honestly don't know and cannot install the hundreds of Windows updates in my Win8 VM. Did you try to copy again the files “dwmapi.dll” and “dwm_rdr.dll” from the IE folder to the Firefox folder ? If it still doesn't work, you can try to edit the manifest in Firefox.exe using e.g. Resource Hacker and add the line “<file name="dwmapi.dll" />” before “</assembly>” (this is what “Patch IE” does, to force it to use the local dwmapi.dll file instead of the one located in System32)…

Added it to the manifest file, no change. I tried to remove the files from the folder, and when I do that it gets much worse, so it looks like it is loading them correctly but something else is messing up the rendering of the title bar. I also tried installing Pale Moon (other Firefox-based browser), same result.

Funnily enough, this is the only application having this issue. I'd be interested to know if other w8classic users are having this issue, but it's not a big problem anyway...

work for x64 version of firefox for x86 not work :/

1- get firefox x64
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pcxfire ... /x64/sse2/


2- Download my dll (unpack 2 dll to folder firefox.exe), restart firefox and enjoy
http://www61.zippyshare.com/v/BnZVl1gl/file.html


IbmPad whats new in this version compiled day 23/03?

[Lebowsky]

work for x64 version of firefox for x86 not work :/

1- get firefox x64
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pcxfire ... /x64/sse2/


2- Download my dll (unpack 2 dll to folder firefox.exe), restart firefox and enjoy
http://www61.zippyshare.com/v/BnZVl1gl/file.html

oh that's great, thanks for the info!!

IbmPad whats new in this version compiled day 23/03?

he said it just above I have modified the program so that you can run it manually by renaming the file to “ClassicThemeA.exe” (be sure to run it with admin rights)

[windows.nt.win32]

IBMPad, I honestly can't thank you enough. Now I can have the classic theme on a per-user basis.

I have a batch file set to run at startup for my user account. It is a bit annoying, but I like having explorer.exe as the system shell.

Code: Select all

@echo off
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start %SystemRoot%\ClassicThemeA.exe
start %SystemRoot%\Shells\ClassicTheme\explorer.exe

I've noticed that when ClassicThemeA.exe is run, the taskbar is not fixed. However, I managed to fix this problem by with this workaround:

1.) Copy Explorer.exe into a new folder (I copied mine to C:\Windows\Shells\ClassicTheme\explorer.exe).

2.) Do the same for explorer.exe.mui located in your language locale folder.
For example, my language is English, United States. So I ended up copying C:\Windows\en-US\explorer.exe.mui to C:\Windows\Shells\ClassicTheme\en-US\explorer.exe.mui. Just do the same for your system language.

3.) Download the dwmapi.dll and dwm_rdr.dll files posted by maur0, and put them in the new explorer folder.

4.) Now open up the regedit. Navigate to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\winlogon and create a new string value called 'Shell'.

5.) Edit this string value to point to your new explorer.exe file (again, for me it was C:\Windows\Shells\ClassicTheme\explorer.exe).

[windows.nt.win32]

You know, I think this could be implemented as a service. I did some testing, and ran ClassicTheme.exe on the login screen (using the old sticky keys Command Prompt exploit). I then killed the process LogonUI.exe (which will automatically restart when it's killed) and the login screen worked fine. And when I logged into my account, I was still using the classic theme. However, Aero seems to be enabled whenever I log off.

[windows.nt.win32]

Well, I can confirm that this can be implemented as a service. Using sc create, I added ClassicThemeA.exe as a service, and it does work. It will start up with the computer. However, there are a few issues with it in its current state. The first issue being that it will set itself as the shell at startup. This should be fixable. The second issue is that when you log off, it will no longer be in effect. I have an idea as how this could potentially be fixed, if anyone would like to try and fix it.

1.) The process starts up on the login screen as a service (it already does this with no problems).
2.) The process waits for the user's login credentials to be entered
3.) The process checks the registry to see if the current user logging in has the classic theme enabled. This would allow the classic theme to be used as a per-user basis.
-If the classic theme is enabled, the process enables the classic theme.
-This should all happen before the user's desktop/explorer.exe is loaded.
4.) The process runs in the background using very little memory. It will stay active when the user logs off, allowing it to be ready to start over at step 2 when a user logs back on.

I'm not sure if there would be any limitations preventing the program from executing this way. I'm not sure if IbmPad would be up for making it do this (if he is that's great, but if he's not that's alright), which is why I'm happy this is open source. I would do it if I knew how to program, but unfortunately I don't as of now. But I decided to throw this out there just in case anyone else wants to look into this.

[Anixx]

Well, Windows 7 has failed to load after recent update so I had to re-install the system. So I decided to move to Win8.
So now on I use this program to its fullest extent.

[maur0]

Well, Windows 7 has failed to load after recent update so I had to re-install the system. So I decided to move to Win8.
So now on I use this program to its fullest extent.

work fine only small bug on colors "selected itens" color is black and white but in real is blue and white and task bar not up and down only disable classic theme work, just that anything that compromises the use normally.




http://i.imgur.com/Bt3CZNo.png

[Anixx]

work fine only small bug on colors "selected itens" color is black and white but in real is blue and white

You can edit the theme colors manually in the registry.

[windows.nt.win32]

Well, Windows 7 has failed to load after recent update so I had to re-install the system. So I decided to move to Win8.
So now on I use this program to its fullest extent.

work fine only small bug on colors "selected itens" color is black and white but in real is blue and white and task bar not up and down only disable classic theme work, just that anything that compromises the use normally.




http://i.imgur.com/Bt3CZNo.png

Like Anixx said, you can edit the colors in the registry. Look under HKCU\Control Panel\Colors and try modifying either the "Hilight" or "MenuHilight" values. I think this bug is present because Windows XP introduced a new highlight for flat menus, and this color scheme picker is from Windows NT 5.0 beta.

[Anixx]

This script fixes the 1 pixel off taskbar issue a little bit better, but still not perfectly.

Code: Select all

#NoEnv
#NoTrayIcon
 
SetControlDelay, -1
Gui +LastFound
hWnd := WinExist()
 
Sleep, 5000

;WinGet, id,, ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd

WinGetPos,,,ww,wh, % "ahk_id " id

ControlMove, ReBarWindow321,,4,,,  % "ahk_id " id

ControlGetPos, ,y,,h,ReBarWindow321,  % "ahk_id " id
ControlMove, TrayNotifyWnd1,,4,,h-4,  % "ahk_id " id

WinSet, Redraw,,  % "ahk_id " id

DllCall( "RegisterShellHookWindow", UInt,hWnd )
MsgNum := DllCall( "RegisterWindowMessage", Str,"SHELLHOOK" )
OnMessage( MsgNum, "ShellMessage" )
Return

ShellMessage(wParam,lParam) {


   If (wParam = 1 or wParam = 2) ;  HSHELL_WINDOWCREATED := 1
   {

;WinGetClass, WinClass, ahk_id %lParam%

WinGet, lParam,, ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd

WinGetPos,,,ww,wh, % "ahk_id " ahk_id %lParam%

ControlMove, ReBarWindow321,,4,,,  ahk_id %lParam%

ControlGetPos, ,y,,h,ReBarWindow321,  ahk_id %lParam%
ControlMove, TrayNotifyWnd1,,4,,h-2,  ahk_id %lParam%

WinSet, Redraw,,  ahk_id %lParam%

}

}