Aero Glass Changelog

What's new in Aero Glass 1.5.13 For Windows 8.1+

Dec 13, 2019
  • version for Windows 10 November 2019 Update (v1909)
  • fixed loading CustomThemeMaterial
  • using theme default glow size when TextGlowMode set to 0x00000003
  • render glow effect under text only when window caption is set to center

New in Aero Glass 1.5.10 For Windows 8.1 (Dec 10, 2018)

  • Version for Windows 10 October Update (v1809)
  • Added hardcoded patterns verification when symbol files are present (it will try to download symbol files on the first run)
  • Increase default buffer sizes to avoid too often resizing
  • Changed license key checking to accept keys for both HyperV enabled or disabled
  • Fixed loading ColorizationColorBalance settings from registry
  • Additional changes to match acrylic design (installer provides option which design to use)
  • HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsDWM:
  • CustomThemeReflection - file with texture that is stretched over whole desktop and rendered above glass regions (default is Aero Glass Win7 reflection texture)
  • CustomThemeMaterial - file with texture that is rendered (tiled) above glass regions (default is Acrylic noise texture)
  • ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity - opacity of reflection texture (default = 0)
  • MaterialOpacity - opacity of material texture (default = 4)

New in Aero Glass 1.5.8 For Windows 8.1-10.0.16299 (Feb 26, 2018)

  • fixed random glitches on occlusion regions
  • fixed optimized dirty rectangles indexing
  • fixed UWP apps frame's Direct3D device management
  • hardcoded symbols for 10.0.16299.248
  • very limited support for Insider build 17074.1002

New in Aero Glass 1.5.6 for Windows 10.0.15063 (Sep 12, 2017)

  • hardcoded symbols for 10.0.15063.540
  • another fix for DPI-Awareness on UWP apps titlebars
  • fixed antioccluder on UWP apps
  • stability fixes

New in Aero Glass 1.5.5 for Windows 10.0.15063 (Aug 21, 2017)

  • fixed drawing context destructor hook
  • fixed DPI-Awareness on UWP apps titlebars
  • hopefully fixed titlebars on UWP apps with extended frame
  • ApplicationFrame symbols are required to make this work correctly

New in Aero Glass 1.5.4 for Windows 10.0.15063 (Aug 21, 2017)

  • version designed for Windows 10 Creators Update (10.0.15063)
  • dropped support for 32-bit systems

New in Aero Glass 1.5.3 for Windows 10.0.14393 (Mar 22, 2017)

  • hardcoded symbols patterns up to build 14393.953
  • fixed caption misalignment when glow effect is disabled
  • added option to draw caption centered (HKCUSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsDWM: CenterCaption (DWORD 0x0 / 0x1))
  • changed IAT hooks initialization order
  • enable SeDebugPrivilege in aerohost process

New in Aero Glass 1.5.2 for Windows 10.0.14393 (7.1.2017) (Jan 9, 2017)

  • Merged with ModernFrame.dll (use regsvr32.dll to get glass frame on modern apps)
  • Support to load UxTSB.dll by aerohost process
  • Fixed left offset of window caption
  • Some minor fixes

New in Aero Glass 1.5.1 for Windows 10.0.14393 (Oct 17, 2016)

  • optimization: don't use glass safety zone when rendered region does not contain glass
  • fixed glass safety zone render transformation
  • DWMColorizationColor(Inactive) settings can be used again for setting frame edge color
  • DWMColorPrevalence settings is respected

New in Aero Glass 1.5 for Windows 10.0.14393 (Oct 17, 2016)

  • version designed for Windows 10 Anniversary (Redstone 10.0.14393)

New in Aero Glass 1.4.6 For Windows 8.1 and 10 (Sep 21, 2016)

  • hardcoded symbol patterns for build 10586.589
  • dirty region optimization fixes
  • when DWM process crashes too often, Aero Glass will stop injecting
  • fixed data sharing between more drawings in one pass

New in Aero Glass 1.4.1 For Windows 8.1 and 10 (Sep 3, 2015)

  • when Aero Glass is loaded broadcast WM_THEMECHANGED to all applications
  • fixed crash on invalid reflection image
  • hardcoded symbol patterns for DWMCORE build 10240.16461
  • fixed glass occlusion on regions near the screen edge
  • fallback into always-glass mode only when symbols have not been loaded
  • Win10 only: added support for AccentColor and AccentColorInactive settings to set different color for caption header; DWORD values 0xRRGGBB in SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM

New in Aero Glass 1.4 For Windows 8.1 (Aug 27, 2015)

  • Windows 10 10.0.10240 support
  • hardcoded symbol patterns for current version of DWM in Win8.1
  • added build numbering
  • hopefully fixed crash on device resource change
  • blur deviation setting partially influences Win10 blur accent too
  • lots of stability and performance fixes and code refactoring
  • added >>experimental

New in Aero Glass 1.3.2 For Windows 8.1 (Aug 27, 2015)

  • Windows 10 support
  • changed initialization order to allow blur effect even when symbols cannot be loaded
  • fixed race condition causing that settings were not rarely loaded

New in Aero Glass 1.3.1 For Windows 8.1 (Aug 27, 2015)

  • fixed the problem that the key was not accepted under rare circumstances

New in Aero Glass 1.2.5 For Windows 8.1 (May 8, 2014)

  • hardcoded symbol patterns for Win8.1 Spring2014 update
  • some minor fixes
  • added setup option to adjust access permissions for those who don't know how to set them on their own

New in Aero Glass 1.3 For Windows 8 (Mar 20, 2014)

  • internal changes to be consistent with Aero Glass for Win8.1 code
  • fixes to allow on-the-fly preview from prepared GUI application
  • CustomThemeResource settings name changed to CustomThemeAtlas

New in Aero Glass 1.2.1 For Windows 8.1 (Mar 20, 2014)

  • fixes to allow on-the-fly preview from prepared GUI application

New in Aero Glass 1.2 For Windows 8.1 (Feb 15, 2014)

  • inactive frame blur/color balances are not altered by theme opacity settings when user set them manually
  • blur deviation settings is applied everytime colorization is changed (so no DWM restart is needed now)
  • custom theme resource can now be loaded globally from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
  • glass is disabled when running on a battery

New in Aero Glass 1.1 For Windows 8.1 (Jan 31, 2014)

  • fixed errors when caption font size is set to zero
  • select correct target for glass safety zone
  • glass safety zone is local with static surfaces
  • flush before glass safety zone if required
  • removed symbol dependency on destructor of COcclusionContext
  • CoCreateInstance(CLSID_WICImagingFactory...) changed to WICCreateImagingFactory_Proxy
  • fix race condition when loading custom reflection
  • added human readable message when donation key/atlas/reflection loading fails
  • fixed blur effect on targets with alpha mode different from D2D1_ALPHA_MODE_IGNORE
  • added timestamp to minidump file name
  • verifying aerohost privileges should not be language-dependent

New in Aero Glass 1.0 For Windows 8.1 (Jan 20, 2014)

  • fatal errors are always logged regardless the EnableLogging settings
  • included default reflection image
  • some additional error checking and small code cleanup
  • small fix around glass safety zone

New in Aero Glass Pre-release For Windows 8.1 (Jan 20, 2014)

  • Fixes for occasional blur glitches
  • Fixed bug that settings was not sometimes loaded
  • Modified settings to allow adjusting composited (mode 3) glow effect size: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM:TextGlowMode (DWORD): HIWORD specifies glow size (0 = theme default), LOWORD specifies glow mode
  • Some other small fixes

New in Aero Glass Release Candidate 2 For Windows 8.1 (Jan 20, 2014)

  • 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

New in Aero Glass Release Candidate 1 For Windows 8.1 (Jan 20, 2014)

  • a few fixes
  • donation key is loaded from donation.key file (license.key still supported but it will be removed in the future)
  • added more error logging
  • added 32-bit build
  • added settings to tweak text glow effect: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM:TextGlowMode (DWORD): 0x0=No glow effect, 0x1=Glow effect loaded from atlas, 0x2=Glow effect loaded from atlas and theme opacity is respected, 0x3=Composited glow effect using your theme settings

New in Aero Glass Candidate for Release Candidate For Windows 8.1 (Jan 20, 2014)

  • simplified some things about settings/theme loading
  • registry settings to enable/disable glass when running on battery should work again (default is "Disable glass on battery") - probably disables blur effect only and leaves full transparency now
  • multiple monitors fixes
  • offscreen render target fixes (e.g. Magnifier)
  • prepared some parts of code to build 32-bit version soon
  • caption glow is now stretched to whole frame height
  • fixed crashes/weird rendering when resource domain changes (e.g. when exiting games, changing video adapter etc.)

New in Aero Glass Beta 4 For Windows 8.1 (Jan 20, 2014)

  • HKCU atlas loading fix
  • multi-displays and rotated displays fixes
  • optimization: do not inflate dirty regions and do not use glass safety zone when rendered region does not contain glass
  • glow bitmap is read from system theme (or custom atlas if used), however, only horizontal sizing margins are respected due to the fact how Win8.1 deals with window caption (it seems to be a bug in DWM itself); vertical margins are always zero and glow bitmap is stretch over whole caption height
  • because there is no appropriate theme part to be used for reflection bitmap (aero peek background is not suitable), the reflection bitmap is read from PNG file specified in registry HKCU(or HKLM)\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM:CustomThemeReflection (SZ_STRING)
  • renamed registry settings CustomThemeResource to CustomThemeAtlas

New in Aero Glass 1.2 For Windows 8 (Jan 20, 2014)

  • inactive frame blur/color balances are not altered by theme opacity settings when user set them manually
  • blur deviation settings is applied everytime colorization is changed (so no DWM restart is needed now)
  • custom theme resource can now be loaded globally from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
  • glass is disabled when running on a battery
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM:DisableGlassOnBattery (DWORD 0x0 / 0x1 = default)
  • implemented glass reflection (aero stripes only)
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM:ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity (DWORD 0x0 = disabled (default) / other values = enabled)

New in Aero Glass 1.1 For Windows 8 (Jan 20, 2014)

  • implemented algorithm to generate gaussian blur offsets and weights
  • you can change blur deviation in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM:BlurDeviation (DWORD, default = 30)
  • setting blur deviation to 0 will result in transparent non-blurry frames

New in Aero Glass Beta 3 (Nov 25, 2013)

  • applied affine transformation to glass safety zone and blur effect rendering
  • registry settings is loaded even when AppInit_DLLs loading is not used
  • CustomThemeResource settings is read from registry again (but custom atlas is not applied to already visible windows - they need to be refreshed manually)
  • fixed blur on regions consisting of more than 4 rectangles

New in Aero Glass Beta 2 (Oct 28, 2013)

  • previous beta 1 disabled occlusion to correctly render blur regions. It caused that it rendered even non-visible (covered) window regions resulting in lower performance and higher power consumption
  • this part has been completely reimplemented (because needed code from Win8 is not already present) and now it works as intended - invisible regions are not rendered at all
  • glass safety zone fixes
  • fixes for multiple monitors/devices/render targets