I just upgraded 7 to 10 and was happy with the smooth transition, much better than the first time I tried it, but I have absolutely no transparency anywhere, windows, taskbar, borders, nothing, even though it is enabled, and searching the forum produces older posts about older builds. Is there any way transparency works in this build or is it some problem with my system, and what third party programs do I need to install?
There is very limited transparency natively in Win 10, and coming from '7 it may seem a bit of a shock if new to you.
Change Transparency Level of Console Window in Windows 10
Turn On or Off Transparency Effects in Windows 10
- and related tutorials in the Related Tutorials section in each.
However you can use Aeroglass (donation to remove nag/desktop stamp) to provide transparency or translucent title bar and borders - but this is not quite ready for 1909 yet, although it can be used according to the MSFN forum.
Aero Glass for Win8+
Normally it's updated a few months after each major build upgrade- 1909 was different to all preceding ones as it was implemented via a cumulatative update.
Here I have it on 1903 (when I tried upgrading to 1909 it said it was not compatible.. a minor tweak is said to achieve this.
A tweak tool allows some adjustment.
Here it's shown with full transparency.
YouTube
Note I've used Win 7's orb in conjunction with Open Shell (a free and far better start menu than Win 10's that can look like Win 7's and more - very configurable) - if you've inherited a large start menu with a hierarchy of folders you will find problems with that unless you use a non-Win 10 style start menu.
Also Win 7 icons using 1 program to modify imageres.dll.
Last edited by dalchina; 02 Dec 2019 at 12:39.
Thanks very much, I will look into all of those, free/donationware is always my first choice because it's typically the best solution to any Windows problem, ( like when I rolled back to 7 and found the task scheduler totally screwed, and there was freeware to solve that issue) and if I have to wait till it's ready for 1909 I can as it's nice knowing that there is an ongoing solution.
Thanks also for the tip about the start menu, it is rather unwieldy right now, but those stupid boxes on the right are coming in handy for programs I need quick access to. I already discovered Oldnewexplorer in this forum which gave me back my details pane, and will be visiting a lot more often as I find more annoyances. I just don't want to customize too much as I still have to use 10 at work so I have to get used to this interface as much as it kills me
File explorer in W10 still has a Details and Preview pane (to the right when you enable one or other from View).
You'll know you don't have to use the UWP apps bundled with Win 10.
Note too the Control Panel still exists, but slowly items are being moved to Settings, sometimes with reduced functionality. Also the Home Group was removed from W10.
Aeroglass- 1909- see BJFox onwards:
Aero Glass for Win8.1+ 1.5.3 - Page 25 - Aero Glass For Windows 8+ - MSFN
If when you upgraded you installed the update for 1909 (a cumulative update) then uninstalling that should give you 1903, which, you can easily keep to end of its life. Just don't know if having come that route you can do that. Plus you have options to defer feature updates in Settings and group policy, and set updates to Notify in group policy.
(I upgraded to 1909, then downgraded again for two reasons- the change in file explorer search, and Aeroglass compatibilty).
You can unpin any tiles you don't want and pin, resize and group new ones that you do use. My Start is customised to my needs...
'Pin to Start' and 'Unpin from Start' items in Windows 10
Resize Tiles on Start Menu in Windows 10
Add, Remove, and Name a Group of App Tiles on Start in Windows 10
Then leave the existing groups in place, just add your own custom groups as well. You can reposition the groups so that your own are at the top of Start and readily available, while the standard one are still there and can be seen by scrolling down, if needed.I just don't want to customize too much as I still have to use 10 at work...
Aero Transparency went away with Windows 10 and has returned with very limited features. You can change around the Start Menu. The Tiles actually come in handy if you are needing certain programs at reach instead of punning them to Taskbar where they may sit and never get accessed for a while. Windows has become a very powerful OS with the changed made to 10.
thanks to you all for every suggestion, some I already figured out all by myself, will keep an eye on the aero glass thread on msfn ( to see if the cancel at logon issue is fixed ) but will probably find notification here first if it gets upgraded. I refuse to live with this ugly ui and am finding lots of fixes here so will keep moving forward with everyone's help!
Hi, provided by Actual Window Manager (There are cut-down versions like AW Title Buttons...).
The drop down options provide a range of options to manipulate a window from roll up, send to back, on top, minimise to tray and more.
Next is favourite folders in a drop down list
Next Recent folders
Next On top (very useful)
There are many more possible buttons.
These give a uniform means of accessing favourite and recent folders across all windows with a standard titlebar.
The program offers a wide range of features, a lot of which I don't use. It's somewhat expensive- I got it free with Trialpay.
I used to use Filebox Extender (free) but that became obsolete and incompatible. When that happened I went looking for an alternative.
Another interesting option I also use is Listary (free/paid).
Middle click an empty area in a dialogue and you get a box with favourite and recent folders.
It's useful to have this to cover non-standard Save as and Open dialogues. Even given both, there are one or two popular programs with which these do not work. Both offer tray options.
Listary has a number of other interesting features including search.
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