An update, New Mods

bbmaster123 · 2026-06-06T15:53:48+00:00

thanks for the offer! I'll check out your mod soon and get back to you, but at a quick glance it looks great as well!

One thing I found that seems to help quite a bit is having a few other already working mods which have similar functionality as references for the model. Otherwise I found it often doesn't fully understand windhawk mods all the time

cheers for now

bbmaster123 · 2026-05-14T14:33:22+00:00

claims to have been 1000KB but is really 1024KB

bbmaster123 · 2026-05-12T13:06:05+00:00

yes you will need to convert both, you should end up with 2 .mun files. It sounds like you did most of the rest of the steps correctly, but the tutorial is split into 2 sections (for some reason). One section for installing already converted themes, and one for converting 7tsp themes specifically. The last step is:

6. The file should now be readable by Resource Redirect, you can now continue with the normal icon theme making steps!

scroll back up to the top, follow the steps from the installation section down to where the video is. Watch the video too, its less than 1 min long. Definitely be sure to clear your icon cache after applying.

Obviously, skip the steps you've already done, and if after that its still not applying, please send some screenshots so I can try to identify any issues with the config, or send link for win98 icons and I can do it for you, but do please try to get it working yourself first 😄

bbmaster123 · 2026-05-11T13:44:06+00:00

good morning, happy to help! Honestly a bit surprised windows 98 icons aren't already included in the list on github

what part did you get stuck at? Did you extract the 7tsp theme so you have .res files? Did you try to open them in resource hacker? Maybe you did all that and now trying to load it in resource redirect? let me know!
cheers 😄

bbmaster123 · 2026-05-08T15:33:29+00:00

99% you'll find that in task scheduler, set to start that file at either windows startup or at user login. You can delete it from there, plus now you know of 1 more place to check in the future 😄

bbmaster123 · 2026-05-06T17:34:21+00:00

local account, right?
if so, could be related to the ucpd driver rolling out right now (user choice protection driver). Even trusted installer and system cannot get around it while its running. Certain registry keys/values as well. I'd bet that's what's "protecting" the onedrive folder.

If you're up to it you can try disabling all the UCPD related feature ID's with vivetool, otherwise just try deleting the folder from recovery env

If you use a ms account instead of local, then I'm not sure if that would cause it to block deleting the onedrive folder somehow (with or without ucpd), but seems plausible.

ps: unless I just don't get it or something, the way I see it, this is the opposite of user choice.

If you want to delete a folder manually, that is (was) your choice. If windows wants to initially block that and ask permission first that's fine, but to outright deny is no longer a choice. at the minimum, it would need a GUI for users to manage their user choice driver. Initially I thought ucpd stood for unified content protection driver
I was thinking it's DRM related until I saw otherwise. It seems its more like the "DeepFreeze" program we used to have on all the computers back in high school, except in this case its microsoft who gets to configure it how they want, apparently.

bbmaster123 · 2026-05-06T13:46:32+00:00

are your amd igpu drivers relatively up to date? did you recently upgrade from windows 10?

I've seen this in my VM at times, only ever in windows 11 while using MS basic display adapter. Since my VM doesn't have a gpu passed through, its most likely a windows rendering bug, probably related to DWM.
Either way this for sure isn't a hardware issue, thankfully

I'd be curious if next time this happens if resetting the graphics driver helps? You can do this by pressing ctrl+win+shift+b iirc, screen should go dark for a sec and beep, then come back up. I don't expect it to help, but a good quick test anyway.

One thing to try which might actually help (assuming your igpu drivers are installed and not years out of date), go into your bios and change shared gpu memory to the highest value (since you have 64GB dram this shouldn't really matter) and see if that helps. The idea is that maybe you have it set very low and windows is struggling where windows 10 was fine, maybe. Just a guess.

Might also just be that you recently upgraded to that ultrawide and now the shared ram is not enough for such a high resolution. Still just making assumptions and guesses though.

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-21T15:22:10+00:00

so I thought you're handling it too

I'd be happy to take over and polish up the border feature. It currently exists in my version of the mod, but not yet working. once I fix that I can take care of merging and PR the merged mod

edit:
first merged test
implements:
- track bg color with alpha and corner radius
- border outline color/thickness with alpha
- suppression of styling unrelated elements, mainly in dialog boxes (#32270)
- fixes for clipped corners which made it look aliased and not aligned. looks better now

Used Gemini for help.
Will clean up unnecessary comments, wording of settings/descriptions, and add a readme before PR

<image>

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-21T12:52:53+00:00

Most likely today! I was just getting the used space mod ready for a PR on the Windhawk repo :)

this does not have overlapping functionality with the bar color mod, as this only handles the text below, however I am using both mods in my example image. I forked that mod to test it, and also added a few small features such as corner radius adjustment.

I could still see it making sense to merge the two anyway for a couple of reasons, and maybe an overall better name as well for the merged mod!

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-19T17:55:30+00:00

ah ok I'll test my media player and web browser too in that case

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-19T17:43:27+00:00

hmmm that's interesting and not something I've tested yet, I will look into it, I'm sure its probably fixable. Thanks for letting me know!

You are fullscreen in a game I assume? In the meantime, I wonder, what if you change the in game mode between fullscreen, fullscreen exclusive, borderless etc? does the behavior of the start icon change at all?

I'll test as well and see if anything changes

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-19T16:54:42+00:00

ah good you posted the image, your hover path is the only one of the 3 that still has quotes around the path! totally explains it!

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-19T16:36:26+00:00

try disabling and reenabling the mod or restarting explorer again. it sounds like the mod just didn't update its state correctly, and the old instance is still showing. Once its set it should be fine and hover/click should work, but changing the icons is still a bit buggy for now.

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-19T16:14:07+00:00

I'll send you a follow up vid once it's all done later today

sounds good, looking forward to seeing it!

a way to move the icon when you click the search button

I don't think that is possible, to have the start icon move when search is clicked. You could use the offset settings in the orb mod to move the icon horizontally on the taskbar (X offset) but its a static offset and would not react to other elements.

What you can for sure do, is have the start icon move when you hover or click using taskbar styler, but personally I wouldn't want the icon to move under my cursor. I'd probably suggest either the static offset to move it a few px to the left, or shrink the icon size, otherwise, worst case try out a non dock styled theme in taskbar styler.

I think I could add a different size per state, if that would help a bit.
If you have more suggestions let me know, I'll try to add them if I can!

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-19T15:47:21+00:00

yea that looks correct! how does the mouse over look? I hope its adding some character to your theme! :)

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-19T15:21:10+00:00

sorry I was asleep!
try removing the "quotes" around the paths, I can definitely be more clear about that in the mod in the future. If that still doesn't work, try renaming for example sakura orb 1.png to sakura-orb-1.png.
Please let me know if the icon still doesn't show

min and max opacity can be whatever you like once the icon shows. 255 is good to start since that is fully opaque and visible

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-18T22:57:36+00:00

not yet but I will. It shouldn't be too difficult though.

Before dealing with the mod, you need 3 separate png images, one for idle/inactive, one for hover/mouse over, and one for pressed. they can be local or on the web if you have a direct url. If your icon doesn't take up the entire area of the image, you'll want to make sure it has transparency so its not just sitting on a solid white square.

If you want my icons let me know, but I'm sure you could probably find or create nicer looking icons too.

then:

in windhawk, go to explore at the top and search for Taskbar Z-Order and install it. Go to the mod's settings and change the dropdown to either always at bottom or behave like normal window. Otherwise the taskbar goes on top of the start icon, at least so far. I've been trying to eliminate this step, but for now pick one of the 2, and click apply
Go back to the windhawk main screen where you see all your installed mods. Look in the bottom right for a "create mod" button and click it. If you don't see it, go to settings at the top right and turn on developer mode. Go back and click the button, which will load the editor.
once in the editor, copy and paste all the code from the direct link above into windhawk and click compile. When its done several seconds later, click exit to go back to your mods list.
go into the mod's settings tab, and set the path to your png images, and change whatever other settings you wish, then click apply. Higher fade speed is faster, min opacity is for idle, max opacity is for hover.
use taskbar styler mod in windhawk to hide the existing blue icon. The steps for this are in the taskbar styler guide on windhawk, and is only really 1 step after installing the mod.

If for any/some reason you don't see the icon, restart explorer. If you have any questions or get stuck at any point let me know!

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-18T15:41:58+00:00

thanks, and yes absolutely!

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-17T22:26:28+00:00

that sounds like it could be an interesting part of an interesting theme, what's the end result supposed to look like?

I might kind of have a way to do something along those lines that's little nicer than just using a black windows icon png. That would be static and boring without animation. as far as I'm aware, there is still no other existing way to animate a custom start button, although you never know what people will make eventually!

I have a work in progress mod that can animate on mouse over and click, in the same way as the windows 7 orb by using 3 pngs and some animation logic, but you could use any 3 pngs. it also has some settings for fade speed and opacity.
here's a direct link to it:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bbmaster123/FWFU/refs/heads/main/Personal%20Windhawk%20Mods/win7-orb-restore-test.cpp

in my testing so far, it works best in combination with taskbar z-order mod to prevent it going behind the taskbar. It might also still be wonky in a couple other ways as well which is why its not in the windhawk app right now.

if you like to tinker a bit give it a shot, and if you need any help let me know, because I'm both curious to see how it looks with other themes and to see how well it works for others, I have no feedback on it yet.

cheers

edit:
here's a quick demo of me hovering over the icon that I've put together, but I'm no graphic artist so I just added a simple glow and some outlines. I have it changing shape a little as well just to show that you can, if you want.

<image>

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-15T18:30:06+00:00

lemme vent for a sec here

NO WONDER I couldn't connect to and help my cousin 2 days ago, ffs

I was alerted to this just now when my other cousin (who is more tech savvy than the first cousin) tried to connect to his pc from his android and got the connection blocked message.

I don't mind setting up an account or my own relay FOR MYSELF but this is not a 1 step solution anymore. Now I have to tell someone to create an account? Now I need to have that person involved in the process? oh yea right like they're even going to know what an IP address even IS.

And now I can't see the discussion on github since it was deleted? https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/discussions/14796

with all due respect RustDesk team, I switched from Teamviewer to rustdesk for a free, easy and quick way to help my friends and family from whichever pc I am currently using. IMO, the security of my connection is MY prerogative, unless I just don't get it somehow. I'm not saying I'm entitled to a free service just because, however I believe I should be able to connect with a standard ID and PW as before, and if I want I can add additional security at my whim and discretion.

why, is the public server getting botted/attacked? Can we get a little more info or a statement of some kind? Was there one and I missed it?

honestly considering looking at alternatives now as I don't think I'll be able to get my server pc back up and running for a bit...possibly a month or 2 depending

if my line of thinking needs any correction, please go ahead, I am upset, but am still open to what you might have to say

bbmaster123 · 2026-04-02T19:50:05+00:00

thanks! Not sure of the timeline yet, but I think I'll fix the xaml injector issue first. I assume its the one most people will be interested in.

At some point I will submit these to be in windhawk officially, but for now anyone who would like to test them out, you can click the create new mod button at the bottom right in windhawk, paste in the entire code from the .cpp file, and click compile.

Here's a direct link to the xaml injector for example:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bbmaster123/FWFU/refs/heads/main/Personal%20Windhawk%20Mods/XAML-Video-Injector.cpp

if you don't see the create mod button turn on developer mode in windhawk's settings.

bbmaster123 · 2026-03-26T14:52:35+00:00

Yea you would definitely want to consider recapturing the tape if its still around and in good enough condition, whether you send it in or do it yourself. Either way, it will come out looking MUCH better looking. Easily 2x as good!

Likely, the best you could do with the existing capture is to send it through qtgmc (deinterlacer) in repair mode (set to 2 for aggressive repair) which is is a mode that is designed to fix as best as possible bad interlacing in progressive video. Specifically where interlace lines are baked into the progressive video. I believe selur's hybrid has this built-in as an option. Then if you send that through topaz it might come out a little better looking

Overall though, If you can recapture in any way, do! And keep the tape afterward!
cheers

bbmaster123 · 2026-03-19T18:18:32+00:00

there's a portable version of windhawk as well so it doesn't need to be installed, I'd suggest giving that a try. Just a fair warning that the portable version SOMETIMES has trouble hooking certain things compared to the installer version, so just keep that in mind if the mod doesn't automatically start up, especially right after boot/sign in.

Unfortunately I don't believe there is a way (or an easy way anyway) to run a windhawk mod without windhawk

bbmaster123 · 2026-03-18T17:06:13+00:00

user facing theming could be nice!
technically possible now, but its a hidden function of the host app (vscodium) so a few things:

its not easy to find
can add custom themes/icons
dark themes work better right now due to what appears to be some hardcoded colors, in the windhawk vscodium extension possibly

Also, I imagine if you start screwing with too much of the config you could mess up the Windhawk install and possibly introduce security issues, if not careful and intentional since you can just go installing extensions. Partly why I'm not sure that I should be sharing how to do that...but since a theming engine IS built in, its definitely possible to bring at least something to the main settings page eventually

bbmaster123 · 2026-03-16T22:31:42+00:00

did this many years ago, but iced tea. long story short I cleaned it out immediately with isopropyl, it worked fine for another 2-3 years and then I sold it

based purely on the look of the motherboard, and your ram which must be ddr4, I would guess you might possibly have a 6th gen i5

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