Editing The Task Bar Buttons

[iClone]

Hey,
i was looking for a way of editing the task bar buttons,
and i couldn't find the file to edit (its not in the explorer.exe)
so i was thinking maybe some 1 can help me find it, or give me a tut on how to edit it

 

[Prisoner]

It would be helpful if you were a bit more specific on what part of the taskbar buttons you were wanting to edit.

 

[iClone]

well the back ground...
not the icon,
the image behind it

 

[Prisoner]

You may be able to find it if you edit the aero.msstyles file, but it's a longshot... Would have expected it to be in Explorer.

 

[iClone]

and where can i find the aero.msstyles file?

 

[Ivo]

and where can i find the aero.msstyles file?

C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\Aero
I believe you have to patch your system DLLs to accept the modified theme file. There are many patchers out there. I personally use the VistaGlazz 2.0.

 

[ShopBunny]

Hey,
i was looking for a way of editing the task bar buttons,
and i couldn't find the file to edit (its not in the explorer.exe)
so i was thinking maybe some 1 can help me find it, or give me a tut on how to edit it

Well, let's see...

to edit aero.msstyles, and to apply custom themes you need to install UxStyle.
This is a much better way then using patches, cause this app runs as a service, and doesn't actually patch any files. This app was also made with win7 in mind.

When you have that installed, search google for some decent guides on resource hacking. I found that this link explains very clearly, and has some darn good guides.

So read up on the link, and you will see that for any resource the same methods are allways used to modify. The most difficult thing is finding the image or resource you are looking for.

And that takes us to your question : the image behind the icons on the taskbar.
If you mean the colored glow when hovering, then I must dissapoint you, cause those images don't reside in aero.msstyles, or anywhere else for that matter.
The colored image is a result of the combined colors in the icon itself, and will always be similar to the dominant color in the icon. So if an icon is mostly blue, then the color when hovering will be blue-ish.
The calculations for acquiring these results are rooted in the coded API's, so unless you know how to reprogram them, there is no way for you to change that.

 

[iClone]

Well that not what I'm looking for...
I do need the taskbar buttons, but only when the program is on,
no Mouse over no mouse click.
Just when program is opened

 

[Prisoner]

So, you want the taskbar like XP/Vista, where it only shows the program buttons when the program's running?

If that's the case, just don't pin anything to the taskbar (for stuff already on it, just right click > unpin)

 

[ShopBunny]

So, you want the taskbar like XP/Vista, where it only shows the program buttons when the program's running?

If that's the case, just don't pin anything to the taskbar (for stuff already on it, just right click > unpin)

yes indeed. If that's all you want, no hacking or modding needs to be done. Just remove all pinned items from the taskbar.

And if you mean editing that blurry background behind the icon when a program is opened (no hover. in my case that background is white), then take a look at msstyle.info. It shows most locations of resources inside aero.msstyles. You may find it there. They are all grouped per hundred.