Solved Aero without glass

[robertcz]

Forgive me, I am a noob and this is my first post:

I have Aero. I like the features it gives me, especially like the Win-tab navigation functions. I can live with some of the other things it forced me to do.
But I have an issue with vision' being very sensitive to reflection. And it seems that whatever I do to Aero, the taskbar buttons have that very distracting pseudo-reflection look.

Is there any way of using Aero without that shading/reflection effect? Ideally, I would prefer a theme that looks like Classic (some call it Windows 98, but I have been using it in XP and so for me it "is" Windows) but runs under the Aero rendering engine?

Please save me! I tried using Aero all weekend, but just could not focus on my work due to the problem with the "reflections" and other annoying eye-candy. Eventually, last night I gave up and switched back to Windows Classic, which is annoying because I like all the shortcut keys that work in Aero but not in classic.

Rob

 

[Coke Robot]

Yep, go to Personalization, Window Color, and uncheck Enable Transparency.

Hope that helps!

 

[robertcz]

Thanks, that doesn't solve it. Transparency goes, but that white shading that streaks across the top-left one-third of each taskbar button is still there.

Thanks for the comment.

Meanwhile, I have been over at DeviantArt and suspect that it is visual styles, not themes, that I am looking to chance. It will involve patching my OS, but I am willing to give it a go. Am going to try this style: Classic AE 2.1 by ~Saarineames on deviantART

Cheers,
Rob

 

[seavixen32]

You can configure your Aero settings easily.

Go back and switch to full Aero settings and save them.

Press the Win+Pause keyboard combo then click Advanced System Settings.

In the System Properties box click the Advanced tab and click Settings in the Performance section.

From here, you can configure your settings as you like.

​

 

[robertcz]

Thanks, I'll try that. But I think that just removes the transparency, not the pseudo-reflectivity. Will try at home tonight

 

[Coke Robot]

Thanks, that doesn't solve it. Transparency goes, but that white shading that streaks across the top-left one-third of each taskbar button is still there.

Thanks for the comment.

Meanwhile, I have been over at DeviantArt and suspect that it is visual styles, not themes, that I am looking to chance. It will involve patching my OS, but I am willing to give it a go. Am going to try this style: Classic AE 2.1 by ~Saarineames on deviantART

Cheers,
Rob

That theme looks interesting. If disabling transparency doesn't help, you can increase the color intensity by sliding the color adjuster to the far right, and there's a couple of other options to adjust the color. It seems to take the white streak away.

 

[robertcz]

Thanks, that doesn't solve it. Transparency goes, but that white shading that streaks across the top-left one-third of each taskbar button is still there.

Thanks for the comment.

Meanwhile, I have been over at DeviantArt and suspect that it is visual styles, not themes, that I am looking to chance. It will involve patching my OS, but I am willing to give it a go. Am going to try this style: Classic AE 2.1 by ~Saarineames on deviantART

Cheers,
Rob

That theme looks interesting. If disabling transparency doesn't help, you can increase the color intensity by sliding the color adjuster to the far right, and there's a couple of other options to adjust the color. It seems to take the white streak away.

Oh, maybe I didn't tweak enough. I tweaked and tweaked, and it wouldn't disappear. Maybe I was tweaking too many things at once - I'll give it a bash at home today

It's amazing how visual styles can so easily detract from work. I want my OS to be nice, but in the background. I find the standard Aero themes too "in my face".

Cheers,
Thanks for your advice!

 

[seavixen32]

You're very welcome.

In the meantime, we can leave this thread open so you can post back and let us know the outcome or get more help.

 

[Imperfect1]

Perhaps you can get some additional suggestions from these tutorials:
How to Enable or Disable Windows 7 Transparency
How to Enable Full Clear Glass Transparency in Windows 7

 

[Bongo]

Welcome to the Seven Forums
I use Windows Style Builder and can change the look of the taskbar buttons and maybe a couple of other areas for you.
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
Here is the look of the taskbar buttons with no shine


Let me know and I will post it in a zip here.
Jerry

 

[robertcz]

uxStyle

Thanks Bongo, the UxStyle thing seems better (prefer not to patch) but is it safe?

Haven't replied because doing system backups and then going to reimage my system partition before playing around with any of this.

Cheers guys,
(leave the thread open and I'll report back in a day or two).

Rob

 

[robertcz]

Ok guys, thanks for all of your help. I am reporting back.
I took the UxStyle approach, which doesn't involve any patching of my OS files, just the installation of the UxStyle service to allow unsigned themes to work.

I did not need to reboot, as I had to turn UAC down as much as possible already to have simple things running (I'm a programmer, for part of my job, and so UAC gets in the way; anyway, who are M$ kidding, Windows is never used as a mutli-user system - at least not simultaneously).

1) Now, installing UxStyle was a bit funny. First time I tried to install it (bl clickign on UxStyle_Core_Jul13_x64.msi - my system is Windows 7 64-bit), it stopped part way through with an error indicating that some files on my system had been tampered with. Although it asked me to work out how to restore them, I didn't, and just re-ran UxStyle_Core_Jul13_x64.msi again. This time it worked.
There doesn't seem to be any performance hit. While googling it, the security sites said it was safe, and didn't find any references to phishing etc with it. (Mind you' I've only had it running for half an hour, so your milage may vary).

2) After doing that, installed the Classic AE 2.1c (Charcoal) style (find that on DeviantArt). Major disappointment. I mean, the style looked great, but I have a toolbar in my taskbar to mimic the old Quicklaunch (I'm 46, habits have a tendency to stick). Since I stretch my taskbar over two rows rather than one, the icons on the (pseudo-)Quicklaunch toolbar in the taskbar usually wrap around to the second row. Unfortunately, this does not happen in that style, so the toolbar had >> at the right side, and a second row empty. If I stretched it, that would waste screen real estate. HOWEVER, this problem seems to be limited to that Style (Classic AE). After that, I installed a few others, and none of them had the problem. As part of that process, I discovered a style called 7clean V.1.1.1, by JongHyunPark (from DeviantArt). This is a fantastic, unobtrusive almost Mac-like style (sort of Apple, but done right!). It's beautiful/fantastic. I even was tempted to move the taskbar to the top of the screen.

What a lovely Aero style!!!! I am very happy. Thanks for encouraging me, guys.

Rob

(feel free to close off the thread).

 

[seavixen32]

Hello Rob. Pleased to hear you've solved your problem. Thanks for the update too.

I've reported the thread as solved. For future reference you can do the same in any new thread by clicking the red Report Post link at the top-right of the message box and type Solved in the text box that appears.

 

[robertcz]

Thanks for the info and for your help

 

[Barman58]

As the thread starter you can use the "mark this thread as solved" button to mark the thread closed

 

[seavixen32]

Thanks for the info and for your help

You're very welcome. We aim to please.

 

[Bongo]

Good to hear you got it going Rob.
Jerry