Transparent taskbar with non-transparent icons. Possible?

I use Win7 Home Premium x64 SP1.

I'd like to have a 100% transparent taskbar with 0% transparent icons (including pinned program icons and systray icons). Can that be accomplished?

I have tried Glass2k, TransBar, Transparent Taskbar and TClock 2010. None of them allows the taskbar icons to be kept intact when the transparency of the taskbar reaches 100%.

Just wondering if Windows Blinds is what you're after.

WindowBlinds - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Downloads

seavixen,

Thanks for the quick reply and link. But I will see if I can find something free first (I thought it might just be some resgistry tweaks. However, it seems not that simple.)

Many people have been looking for the same thing. I have edited the aero.msstyles and made all the images transparent and in the screenshots below shows the best you can get there will always be a slight blur. The show desk top button can be transparent to if you like.
Different colored wallpaper can make it look better.

If you are using the default aero theme I can change that for you. And post it here in a zip.
If you are using a custom theme you will need to ask the theme maker. It's not cool to change someone else work.
&
You will need to do 1 of these 2 ways of Enabling custom themes for it to work.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/34579-enabling-custom-themes-windows-7-a.html
Or
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/28377-theme-how-apply-custom-themes.html?filter
Jerry

That's how I have my Fences set up --- a completely transparent taskbar across the bottom with totally opaque icons on it. (And, for those who wish, you can customize the degree of transparency of the taskbar.)

@Bongo:

I appreciate your kind offer, and, yes, I would like to enlist your aid for the modification of the taskbar. Thank you in advance.

But I don't use any theme (Win7's or 3rd-party). I only use a .BMP file to be the Desktop wallpaper (It's the old Win95 default white-clouds wallpaper, to be exact.)

And the visual effect option of "Enable transparent glass" is not selected.

Can the taskbar still be modified?

@Imperfect1:

Thank you for telling me about Fences. I downloaded it from http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/index.asp and played it for a while. I think it's very interesting, but so far I have not been able to find out how to make the taskbar transparent and keep the icons opaque.

Are we talking about the same Fences?

drkh said:

@Bongo:

I appreciate your kind offer, and, yes, I would like to enlist your aid for the modification of the taskbar. Thank you in advance.

But I don't use any theme (Win7's or 3rd-party). I only use a .BMP file to be the Desktop wallpaper (It's the old Win95 default white-clouds wallpaper, to be exact.)

And the visual effect option of "Enable transparent glass" is not selected.

Can the taskbar still be modified?

Click to expand...

When you right click on the desktop and go to personalize which theme are you using?
Is it Windows 7 theme?

Jerry

drkh said:

@Imperfect1:

Thank you for telling me about Fences. I downloaded it from Stardock Corporation - Software - Fences and played it for a while. I think it's very interesting, but so far I have not been able to find out how to make the taskbar transparent and keep the icons opaque.

Are we talking about the same Fences?

Click to expand...

Yes. First unlock your Taskbar, then right-click anywhere on the Desktop other than on the Taskbar. Select: Configure Fences, Customize, and then Transparency. There's a Transparency slide bar and set it to however transparent you want your Taskbar. The icons have nothing to do with the transparency of the Taskbar. When done, relock your Taskbar if you wish.

Imperfect1 said:

drkh said:

@Imperfect1:

Thank you for telling me about Fences. I downloaded it from Stardock Corporation - Software - Fences and played it for a while. I think it's very interesting, but so far I have not been able to find out how to make the taskbar transparent and keep the icons opaque.

Are we talking about the same Fences?

Click to expand...

Yes. First unlock your Taskbar, then right-click anywhere on the Desktop other than on the Taskbar. Select: Configure Fences, Customize, and then Transparency. There's a Transparency slide bar and set it to however transparent you want your Taskbar. The icons have nothing to do with the transparency of the Taskbar. When done, relock your Taskbar if you wish.

Click to expand...

I think I'm missing something here I didn't think fences controlled the taskbar I thought it only made areas on the desktop so you could hide your icons can you post a screenshot showing the taskbar settings because I did not see it.
Jerry

Jerry (I must be right this time ,

Bongo said:

When you right click on the desktop and go to personalize which theme are you using?
Is it Windows 7 theme?

Click to expand...

No, it's not. But the default theme after my Win7 installation was, of course, the "Window 7" theme. But I did not use it.

I remember that after my Win7 installation, I clicked on "Destop Background" under the theme list box in the "Personalize" dialogue. Then I chose the BMP file of the old Win95 default Clouds wallpaper to be the wallpaper of my Win7 Desktop. Afterwards, in the list box of themes, an "Unsaved theme", with the Clouds shown as the desktop background, appeared in "My Themes" category. That "Unsaved theme" remained there -- until ten minutes ago.

I guessed that a .theme file might be of help for the understanding of the structure of my Desktop. So, ten minutes ago I saved that "Unsaved theme" with a display name of "Win95 Clouds". Consequently, I've got a Win95 Clouds.theme file under %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Themes . That file is attached with this post. It contains Traditional Chinese characters (in the Clouds BMP filename) and its encoding is UTF-7 (I did not change the encoding).

The aero.msstyles file you mentioned is attached, too. FYI, I have upgraded to SP1 of Win7 Home Pre x64.

If you are going to help with the modification of my Desktop, I do like to have a transparent "Show Desktop" block on the right end of the Systray.

Below is the screen capture of my Win7 Desktop:

Imperfect1,


I installed and tried Fences again.

I right-clicked on the empty area of the Desktop, chose "Configure Fences", clicked on "Appearance", pulled the transparency slider all the way to the very left end. But nothing happened.

We've been over this topic extensively in previous post. There are obviously no new developments. This is one of the best solutions found. Browsing deviantART

Here's my desktop.

Thanks for the info even though you use your wallpaper you are still using Windows 7 theme which is good you will need to select visual effect option of "Enable transparent glass" to get transparent taskbar.
What I am doing is making a custom theme based on the Windows 7 theme. You will need to do one of them tutorials I had linked to in the earlier post so you can use this custom theme. Then you can set your wallpaper to the new custom theme and save it like you did before it all should be good.

Here you go Extract the zip folder at the bottom and
Put both (1 AeroClear folder & 1 AeroClear .theme file)

In
C/Windows/Resources/Themes

You will get this click Continue

And you will get this click Yes

It will show up in Personalization as AeroClear

Let me know if you need some help with this.
Jerry

drkh said:

Imperfect1,


I installed and tried Fences again.

I right-clicked on the empty area of the Desktop, chose "Configure Fences", clicked on "Appearance", pulled the transparency slider all the way to the very left end. But nothing happened.

Click to expand...

As a work-around you might set your Taskbar to auto-hide, and then create a toolbar right above your Taskbar, make the new toolbar transparent and put all of your Desktop icons into the new toolbar. It's not exactly the same, but will, at least, give your Desktop the same look that you're seeking.

TBVNZ,

Glad to hear about the Deviantart solution. It will be the first thing tomorrow.

Imperfect1,


I will give that a shot. But first I'll find a way to move/copy the Systray icons to a newly created toolbar, and to separate that new toolbar from the Taskbar.

Jerry,

Unfortunately when the AeroClear theme is used, I don't feel my Taskbar become more transparent than when "Enable transparent glass" is selected for my Win95 Clouds theme, as shown by the two screen shots below. But I notice that the blur on both ends of the Taskbar disappears. And the black thin border line on top of the Taskbar is gone, too.

I patched the three theme related system files with Universal Theme Patcher, even the two 32-bit ones in the SysWOW64 folder. I also tried UxStyle Core (after restoring those system files with Universal Theme Patcher).

You instructed me to select "Enable transparent glass". But I found I did not need to do that manually. That option will be selected automatically when AeroClear is in use, and de-selected automatically when my Win95 Clouds theme is in use.

Although my Taskbar is still not transparent, I am contented I (and you) have worked for it to change. Actually I don't really mind much about an opaque Taskbar, which I can live with, I'm sure.

I still want to thank you for reaching out.


My Desktop with the AeroClear theme, but not the Win95 Clouds wallpaper:


My Desktop with the AeroClear theme and the Win95 Clouds wallpaper:

drkh said:

Jerry,

Unfortunately when the AeroClear theme is used, I don't feel my Taskbar become more transparent than when "Enable transparent glass" is selected for my Win95 Clouds theme, as shown by the two screen shots below. But I notice that the blur on both ends of the Taskbar disappears. And the black thin border line on top of the Taskbar is gone, too.

I patched the three theme related system files with Universal Theme Patcher, even the two 32-bit ones in the SysWOW64 folder. I also tried UxStyle Core (after restoring those system files with Universal Theme Patcher).

You instructed me to select "Enable transparent glass". But I found I did not need to do that manually. That option will be selected automatically when AeroClear is in use, and de-selected automatically when my Win95 Clouds theme is in use.

Although my Taskbar is still not transparent, I am contented I (and you) have worked for it to change. Actually I don't really mind much about an opaque Taskbar, which I can live with, I'm sure.

I still want to thank you for reaching out.


My Desktop with the AeroClear theme, but not the Win95 Clouds wallpaper:
View attachment 164981

My Desktop with the AeroClear theme and the Win95 Clouds wallpaper:
View attachment 164980

Click to expand...

That's as good as it gets no one has found a way to remove the blur.
Jerry