Any ideas for changing the background of Metro

jeffrys

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Probably not possible, but I remember back when on Developer Preview, we had a Japanese guy who offered the possibility to change this.

I do not think this will work on the CP release as is now, but I think the background for the Metro could be more spicy, at least personalized.

Jeff
 

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Probably not possible, but I remember back when on Developer Preview, we had a Japanese guy who offered the possibility to change this.

I do not think this will work on the CP release as is now, but I think the background for the Metro could be more spicy, at least personalized.

Jeff
Hint: imageres.dll
 

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Heh...

It'll probably become possible in the coming weeks or months as the modders take over to undo the various bits of damage and left out features of Windows 8. It looks like changing the metro backtround will be like changing the windows start animation, tricky but doable for a coder (or a decent res hacker), then easy once someone writes a tool for it.
 

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Heh...

It'll probably become possible in the coming weeks or months as the modders take over to undo the various bits of damage and left out features of Windows 8. It looks like changing the metro backtround will be like changing the windows start animation, tricky but doable for a coder (or a decent res hacker), then easy once someone writes a tool for it.
Except its not that easy to do, only changing the pattern doesnt seem to work, you get this

awesomenewss.png

now the color is in uxtheme.dll but there is no god damn way you could make it transparent (at least with my HEX Editing skills, which arent that great)
 

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Ah so there is no image at all for the center portion?

Well people will still be able to put custom art on top and bottom I guess, it's something. :/

My guess as to the purpose of the split is to facilitate future advertising space. :)
 

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weird thing is that this space varies depending on the pattern selected so we might have some hope after all. We just need to move it totally out of our way
 

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Wait, if you tamper with the uxtheme.dll, you can change ALL the colors of Start?...
 

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Wait, if you tamper with the uxtheme.dll, you can change ALL the colors of Start?...

Hi there
The earlier Chinese applications to change the colours etc do NOT work on W8 RTM REAL builds. I didn't even think they worked on the RP version either.

I'm sure the good peeps over at Deviant art will soon find a way.

Cheers
jimbo
 

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thanks guys,

what also would be nice is the possibility to have gadgets in the Metro.....too much to ask???

Jeff
 

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thanks guys,

what also would be nice is the possibility to have gadgets in the Metro.....too much to ask???

Jeff

Yes probably too much.

Well yes you can change pretty much any color via uxtheme.dll . What I did is got the RGB of the color I wanted to change, then google RGB TO HEX converter found the matching HEX searched with HEX Editor from uxtheme.dll changed color and restart explorer.

If we only could read directui binaries in twinui . well we can but editing isnt easy, HEX works but im not sure what changes what, but I managed to manipulate tile sizes (sort of, managed to size the content inside tiles).
 

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Would a utility app to actively change Start Screen background, tile, and Charms bar colors be too much to ask?... :)
 

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thanks guys,

what also would be nice is the possibility to have gadgets in the Metro.....too much to ask???

Jeff

Yes probably too much.

Well yes you can change pretty much any color via uxtheme.dll . What I did is got the RGB of the color I wanted to change, then google RGB TO HEX converter found the matching HEX searched with HEX Editor from uxtheme.dll changed color and restart explorer.

If we only could read directui binaries in twinui . well we can but editing isnt easy, HEX works but im not sure what changes what, but I managed to manipulate tile sizes (sort of, managed to size the content inside tiles).

Oh dear....

I haven't a clue how to read HEX.....what does what and what goes where?
 

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Would a utility app to actively change Start Screen background, tile, and Charms bar colors be too much to ask?... :)

No, that is not too much to ask. But is MS willing to change this. Afterall how many programmers do they have? 800? or what

Jeff
 

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Would a utility app to actively change Start Screen background, tile, and Charms bar colors be too much to ask?... :)

No, that is not too much to ask. But is MS willing to change this. Afterall how many programmers do they have? 800? or what

Jeff

Heh MS probably has something like 60-80k programmers. And probably at least 5k of them worked on windows 8.
 

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Heh...

It'll probably become possible in the coming weeks or months as the modders take over to undo the various bits of damage and left out features of Windows 8. It looks like changing the metro backtround will be like changing the windows start animation, tricky but doable for a coder (or a decent res hacker), then easy once someone writes a tool for it.
Except its not that easy to do, only changing the pattern doesnt seem to work, you get this


now the color is in uxtheme.dll but there is no god damn way you could make it transparent (at least with my HEX Editing skills, which arent that great)

You don't have to worry about the center pattern anymore. :)

screenshot.png
 

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Heh...

It'll probably become possible in the coming weeks or months as the modders take over to undo the various bits of damage and left out features of Windows 8. It looks like changing the metro backtround will be like changing the windows start animation, tricky but doable for a coder (or a decent res hacker), then easy once someone writes a tool for it.
Except its not that easy to do, only changing the pattern doesnt seem to work, you get this


now the color is in uxtheme.dll but there is no god damn way you could make it transparent (at least with my HEX Editing skills, which arent that great)

You don't have to worry about the center pattern anymore. :)

View attachment 7934

Hi There Lee Whittington
! Can you please explain how to enable that?
 

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It's actually not supposed to go transparent like that but I was playing with different images replacing the current Start Screen background image with a program I am working on but if anyone is curious:

Start Screen Background images are stored in Windows\System32\imageres.dll. Under Png all images from 10000 to 11904. In total that are 360 images, 1 for the thumbnail and preview displayed in Settings\Control Panel\ Start Screen. Then there are 3 different background images for different resolutions.
 

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That is a lot of people Fseal. Maybe there are not enough testers to get bugs out of the product.

Jeff
 

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I'll try and work out the Method... Might come out with some ideas.. if I do, I'll be sure to post it here.. ;)
 

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How does one go about adding in new patterns/backgrounds/colors with imageres Lee? How did you do that in the first place is the better question to ask? And can you make the Start Screen do exactly as you have it but with the Desktop darkened out some? As to differentiate UIs.
 

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