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Windows 7 Themes, Visual Effects and Desktop Composition.



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 21st 21, 10:59 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
skybuck2000
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Posts: 61
Default Windows 7 Themes, Visual Effects and Desktop Composition.

So far the following setup looks beautifull on the laptop:

1. Windows 7 Theme enabled.
2. All effects disabled except:
2.1 Desktop Composition enabled.
2.2 Visual Styles enabled.

It looks gorgious, nice and blue.

Also transparency disabled in right click on desktop and then personalize settings and then somewhat in one of those buttons below, only shows up if windows 7 theme active.

Also if desktop composition is disabled again windows will look different, still kinda nice.

It's amazing to see how many different looks windows 7 can have.

HOWEVER I write this message mostly to inquire about the stability of this theme and desktop composition technology.

The laptop just experienced a BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH.

After playing with these settings and re-enableing the ones as described above.

This happened while using FIREFOX and looking at a website this one:

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...e-disable.html

THIS HAS ME CONCERNED.

There is a special service involved with enabling these themes apperently:

Desktop Window Manager Session Manager crashes - Unable to use Aero themes

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...c-13f50ea22b94

Apperently this service can crash and maybe take down the operating system ?!

I have always used the classic theme with all effect disabled throughout the years so I have little experience with this service on a full blown actively used PC.

Maybe the bluescreen of death is only "switching related" but it got me spooked.

THE SECOND REASON I wrote this message is because:

The description of this services and technology makes it seem that it might be using some kind of hardware acceleration and that might explain why this technology might make the windows GUI FASTER.

I am always interested in ways to optimize windows, especially on my old PC, to make it faster ?!

However not at the cost of reliability.

Very maybe I will experiment with this theme and mode to try and make the GUI a bit faster.

I does feel like the classic GUI is slow at times... no matter what graphics card is in there ?! Except maybe old dual 7900 gtx but that might have been on windows xp or so and might have accelerated the old gui somehow or maybe the new one was on on windows xp.. not sure only later the OS on dreampc 2006 was switched to windows 7.

Now laptop uses windows 7 home edition. still feels very advanced except for the 5200 RPM harddisk which I hate and dispice... it's so ****ing slow sometimes feels like I want to blow a bullit throw my BRAIN ! haha... at least it's abit more reliable.

I am contemplating of maybe using the following procedure to make it faster:

Procedure A:

1. Laptop HD - Image - USB Drive.
2. Buy SSD
3. Detach mouse usb. or boot from usb drive but that would require installing windows again which kinda sucks and might not work well and enable windows to go.
4. Boot laptop with USB stick.
5. Burn img from usb drive back to SSD.

This is a nice trick where the two usb ports on laptop can be used to:

1. boot usb windows 7 image with usb drives windows to go which I made earlier.
2. copy usb windows 7 drive image back to ssd.

Not sure if this will work but maybe.

This would save having to reinstall windows and this home edition is a valid version/genuine version of windows... does have key, it's only home edition which is kinda lacking in some small ways... but ok...

Not sure if it's worth the trouble... thought I write about it lazy for now..

Another option would be to re-install the laptop completely with my own w7 ultimate iso... though it might be missing some updates... on ssd.

This would loose some software and such... not really worth the time for it....

I use the laptop as a ****ty place to store info ... dont take it seriously but it is a kinda nice fast laptop from intel... it does have hickups from time to time... sometimes the computer will just freeze for 1 or 2 seconds especially during video playback which is quite weird.... very sometimes with other things as well not sure if this is a known issue with these intel icore5 laptop processor from 2012 or so.

I am kinda hoping to buy a new threadripper soon... and thus investing time into this laptop not sure if it's worth it... then again if I have to go somewhere it would be nice to have the speed of SSD ?!

Is there a faster way of copieing laptop HD to SSD ?!?

I do have a second PC available.

It would be interesting to know if there is a faster simpler way by using only the laptop but I would also be interested in a two-pc way !

Anyway just rambling a bit... now I am kinda mixing topic but ok it does have "speed" as the main topic hehe... also a little realibility.

What is your experience with this desktop service ?

Does it crash a lot ? Do you think it speeds up your GUI/OS/Computer ?

Oh by the way.. Delphi community edition 10.3 was also running on laptop during the time of the crash, experimented somewhat with images.

Delphi community edition 10.3 actually needs the aero theme enabled otherwise it will render it's GUI completely ****ED.

So that is what got me interested in these windows 7 themes HAHA.

Better late than never ! LOL.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #2  
Old February 21st 21, 11:30 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
skybuck2000
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Posts: 61
Default Windows 7 Themes, Visual Effects and Desktop Composition.

Well so far I did some testing by observing task manager and gpu-z.

I dragged some windows explorer windows...

I do notice that in theme mode the drag box renders a bit quicker/faster more smooth... and perhaps the window movement is slightly more smooth but it doesn't matter much.

GPU-z reports 6% gpu usage in theme mode and 3% usage in classic mode.

So far I prefer classic mode it's cleaner, plus I set some special fonts which are easier to read.

Ofcourse I saved my themes =D I still know how to set them up sort of... but I ll check just incase and describe it he

All fonts are set to tomaha and size 9, except Palette title.

After this post I will go back to experimentation and try to create the ultimate aero mode by setting these fonts and such... to see how it looks

Also no font smooth for crispy clear text and such.

I think I already disabled that in the aero theme by not sure, the fonts still looked a bit too smooth, perhaps true type setting have to be reset after changing theme not yet sure...

See ya !

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #3  
Old February 21st 21, 11:56 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
skybuck2000
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Posts: 61
Default Windows 7 Themes, Visual Effects and Desktop Composition.

So far the classic theme uses these settings which have now been applied to the new theme:

Active Title Bar 18
Active Window Border 1 (default 4)
Border Pading 0
Caption Buttons 18
Icon 16
Icon Spacing (Horizontal) 80
Icon Spacing (Vertical) 48
Inactive Title Bar 18
Inactive Window Border 1
Menu 18
Palette Title 15
Scrollbar 16 (default 17)
Selected Items 18

Font: Tahoma Size 9 for all except pallette title this size is 8.

It still doesn't look quite the same but it is an improvement probably.

The main problem is the text on the taskbar and inside windows explorer is still being smooth somehow.

This is very annoying and very blurry it also makes the text smaller inside the taskbar.

It's quite annoying and fuzzy and ****ty.... if one is used to that one wouldn't notice it, for example this is the default setting on the laptop but on my PC which I have used for years in classic GUI I notice this.

I can remember it's quite a pain to turn this off somehow.

It's not clear text setting, which is already off.

I shall try and google this to see if it's possible to turn this off... also maybe it's already in my information folder.

It's amazing how much the settings for the GUI are scatted all over the place in windows 7 in different windows/menu/settings and what not. I wonder if windows 10 has it more together !

The ****ty font in windows explorer and taskbar right now is a deal breaker for me.

I will try and find a cure though... making screenshots could be interesting, but little time for that...

But because this is so interesting I will make only a screenshot of the current problem and then you can see the difference lol.

But I will do this is a next posting. Switching to much between themes does screen the minimize buttons in forefox and such.

I don't wanna risk a crash and losing this text so first I post this and then I will make a side by side screenshot to show the difference.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #4  
Old February 22nd 21, 12:18 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
skybuck2000
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Posts: 61
Default Windows 7 Themes, Visual Effects and Desktop Composition.

It's been a long time since I uploaded a screenshot of windows 7 I think.

I enjoyed how I analyzed the beta version of windows 7 and screenshotted the **** out of it ! =D

Also delphi GUI analysizzz... Apperently I like analyzing guis.

Anyway here it is:

http://www.skybuck.org/Windows7/Them...mparisonV1.png

Make sure to look at it in "true size/actual pixel size" so zoom in on it otherwise you won't see the fat fonts that is currently in windows explorer.

Now I need to find a way to turn it off for this blueish theme to be usuable otherwise it will fatigue my eyes and drive me crazzzy ! =D

This screenshot does include the tahoma font size 9 adjustments and such.

Notice how personalization is white, tinier and fat... I dont like that.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #5  
Old February 22nd 21, 12:22 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
skybuck2000
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Posts: 61
Default Windows 7 Themes, Visual Effects and Desktop Composition.

Oh there is also a bold setting.

Maybe this is it.

I will re-do the list above and see if it makes a change:

Skybuck's Classic theme:

Active Title Bar 18 BOLD (off in aero theme)
Active Window Border 1 (default 4)
Border Pading 0
Caption Buttons 18
Icon 16
Icon Spacing (Horizontal) 80
Icon Spacing (Vertical) 48
Inactive Title Bar 18 BOLD (off in aero theme)
Inactive Window Border 1
Menu 18
Palette Title 15 BOLD (off in aero theme)
Scrollbar 16 (default 17)
Selected Items 18

So the classic theme has 3 bolds, the aero theme/blue theme has no bolds.

So this is not it... hmmm

Still wondering how to turn off bold text in windows explorer when aero theme is ON !

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #6  
Old February 22nd 21, 12:23 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
skybuck2000
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Posts: 61
Default Windows 7 Themes, Visual Effects and Desktop Composition.

Side note:

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Personalization\Window Color and Appearance

There transparency can be turned off.

Advanced appearence settings allows font and size and boldness per window item and such to be changed.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #7  
Old February 22nd 21, 12:33 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
skybuck2000
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Posts: 61
Default Windows 7 Themes, Visual Effects and Desktop Composition.

I am not sure, but it might be that the new aero theme has the windows explorer font settings stuck on BOLD and it cannot be changed, then again maybe there is some registry setting that changes it I can remember doing that somehow for the classic theme but maybe my memory is wrong on that... It's laughable thinking that people are stuck with that horrible bold font setting, same in windows 10 ?! YIKES. Maybe I want to keep my old computers a BIT LONGER LOL.

I can't find anything right now with google, maybe it's in some obscure site somewhere I will check my drive to see if I can find any solution

This post has a link to some engineer at microsoft claiming it's hard coded:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...3-030a7f1e0e65
"

Windows 7 font stuck on bold?
So I have clicked default fonts and tried changing every default font to SenseUI (normal) but it still comes on bold or italic on some places. As far I can see, I think this is the Tahoma font. No matter what I do, it stays bold or on some places italic. I tried doing the default fonts thing but that didnt help. I am running Windows 7 64 bit Intel i3.
This thread is locked. You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread.
Replies (8) 
CmdrKeene
CmdrKeene

MVP |
Volunteer Moderator |
Article Author

According to the engineers' blog about this on http://blogs.msdn.com/e7, some elements of the Windows 7 interface, especially when using Aero themes, are hard-coded to use a specific font and style to preserve the intended ascetic. ClearType, which can sometimes result in a bold appearance (especially on CRT tube monitors), is also hard-coded into the interface in some areas. Do you think these may be attributing to the behavior you see?

If not, could you take a screenshot for us?
"

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #8  
Old February 22nd 21, 12:36 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
skybuck2000
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Posts: 61
Default Windows 7 Themes, Visual Effects and Desktop Composition.

Areo theme:

enable desktop composition
enable use themes
turn off the rest of the effects.
also pick the blue next to the black for background color.
and choose second blue for the nice blue color.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #9  
Old February 23rd 21, 01:52 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
skybuck2000
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Posts: 61
Default Windows 7 Themes, Visual Effects and Desktop Composition.

There is a reset option somewhere in the font settings in control panel.

By resetting the font and rebooting, the problem with windows explorer showing bold text, is fixed !

Bye,
Skybuck Flying ! =D
  #10  
Old February 23rd 21, 05:43 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
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Posts: 1,467
Default Windows 7 Themes, Visual Effects and Desktop Composition.

skybuck2000 wrote:
There is a reset option somewhere in the font settings in control panel.

By resetting the font and rebooting, the problem with windows explorer showing bold text, is fixed !

Bye,
Skybuck Flying ! =D


Control Panels : Fonts : Font settings

"Restore default font settings"

You could run a copy of Sysinternals.com Process Monitor
and record registry changes while pressing that button,
and that would tell you what registry setting is getting
changed when you do that.

And this site gave me another hint.

https://mcmw.abilitynet.org.uk/windows-7-changing-fonts

Looks like this.

https://i.postimg.cc/3NDg2DXJ/W7-Interface-Fonts.gif

There are Bold and Italics selector buttons in that interface.

Paul
 




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