altalex531 / openglass

A replica of the dead software glass8 (Aero Glass for Win8+).

OpenGlass

A replica of the dead software glass8, also known as the upstream project of DWMBlurGlass.

This software is designed for Windows 10 2004 to Windows 11 23H2, which is currently in its early stages and may have various efficiency issues and bugs. OpenGlass works with Windows 10 1809 at a minimum, but I highly recommend you to use Windows 10 22H2.

Some simple tests show that at lower blur radius OpenGlass performs slightly worse than glass8, but at higher blur radius the performance will be a bit better. For some applications where DwmEnableBlurBehind and DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea are used in combination, OpenGlass performs almost twice as well as glass8.

Important

This software is intended for advanced users only. If you are a beginner and you do not have deeper knowledge of Windows (such as registry editing etc.) you should not install this software.
For the average users, you should consider using DWMBlurGlass.

Warning

OpenGlass does NOT support and is NOT intended to support Windows Insider Preview, so if you want to use it in these Windows versions please do it at your own risk.

How to use this software

1. Extract the files from the Release page to C:\, but please don't put them in C:\Users\*, otherwise OpenGlass won't work properly.
2. Run install.bat as administrator, this will create a scheduled task for you to run the OpenGlass helper process on boot, which will monitor and automatically inject its component into Dwm.
3. Run startup.bat as administrator, this will run the helper process manually.
4. When you use it for the first time or just after updating your system, OpenGlass will try to download the symbol files and you will see its download progress bar in the taskbar, but please don't close it and be patient for about 15s. When the symbol files are ready, enjoy!
5. When you want to stop using OpenGlass or update the version of OpenGlass, running shutdown.bat will remove the effects of OpenGlass for you and exit the helper process. At this time, you can either replace the OpenGlass files or continue to run uninstall.bat and manually delete the remaining files to complete the uninstallation.

Documentation (Migrate from glass8 to OpenGlass)

The following table demonstrates the similarities and differences between these two software.

Note

1. Most of the OpenGlass settings are stored in the HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM and HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM, but some registry items are stored only in HKLM and will remain constant at runtime.
2. All external resources referenced by OpenGlass must ensure that it can be accessed by DWM, so paths like C:\Users\* are invalid.
3. Normally, OpenGlass uses the udwm internal API to get the calculated color instead of reading the registry directly to get the color.

• Not implemented means that this feature has not yet been implemented but is possible in the future.
• Not supported means that this feature is impossible to be implemented in current structure.

glass8	Type	Description	OpenGlass	Description	Remarks
EnableLogging	DWORD	0x0 = disables logging to debug.log (default) / 0x1 = enables verbose logging / logging of donation key messages and fatal errors is always enabled			Not implemented
MaxDeviceFeatureLevel	DWORD	Describes the set of features targeted by a Direct3D device.			Not supported
DisableGlassOnBattery	DWORD	0x1 = When your AC power is unplugged and computer is running on the battery then the blur effect will be disabled to decrease power consumption (default) / 0x0 = blur effect won't be disabled on battery		0x01 = When your battery saver is activated then the effect will be disabled to decrease power consumption / 0x0 = blur effect won't be disabled when battery saver is activated	The default value is 1 instead of 0
DisabledHooks	DWORD	Undocumented		0x01 = Disable the hooks of CaptionTextHandler.cpp to enable compatibility with third-party mods	This registry item is stored only in HKLM
ForceD3DMode	DWORD	Undocumented			Not supported
GeometryCommand	DWORD	Undocumented			Not supported
GlassOpacity	DWORD	The amount of the opacity of the windows frames (0-100%).			OK
ColorizationBlurBalance/ColorizationBlurBalanceInactive	DWORD				Not supported
ColorizationColorCaption	DWORD	Color used for drawing window titles. Format is 0xBBGGRR.			OK
BlurDeviation	DWORD	Standard deviation for Gaussian blur, default = 30 (which means σ = 3.0). Value 0 results in non-blurred transparency.			OK
RoundRectRadius	DWORD	The radius of glass geometry, Win8 = 0, Win7 = 12			OK
ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity	DWORD	The intensity of reflection effect (0-100%). The default value is 0%.			OK
	DWORD	Not supported	ColorizationGlassReflectionParallaxIntensity	The parallax intensity of the refection effect (0-100%). The default value is 10%.
CustomThemeReflection	String	path to PNG file which will be used as overlay image to simulate reflection (Aero stripes) effect		If the value does not exist, it will use the resource's bitmap.	OK
CustomThemeMaterial	String	Undocumented			Only works for GlassType=Acrylic
MaterialOpacity	DWORD	Undocumented			Only works for GlassType=Acrylic
CustomThemeAtlas	String	path to PNG file with theme resource (bitmap must have exactly the same layout as msstyle theme you are using!)	CustomThemeMsstyle	path to msstyle file	CustomThemeAtlas is not supported, use CustomThemeMsstyle instead
	DWORD	Not supported	CustomThemeMsstyleUseDefaults	Color scheme uses the result from GetThemeDefaults
TextGlowMode	DWORD	Specifies how window caption glow effect will be rendered. 0x0=No glow effect. 0x1=Glow effect loaded from atlas (default). 0x2=Glow effect loaded from atlas and theme opacity is respected. 0x3=Composited glow effect using your theme settings. HIWORD of the value specifies glow size (0 = theme default).	TextGlowSize	The value specifies glow size. The default value is 15.	TextGlowMode is deprecated, use TextGlowSize instead
EnableBlurBlend	DWORD	Controls how the blurred background and frame colour are composited together (0x0 = default).			Not supported
ForceSystemMetrics	DWORD	Undocumented			Not implemented
GlassSafetyZoneMode	DWORD	Undocumented			Not supported
CenterCaption	DWORD	Undocumented			OK
	DWORD	Not supported	GlassLuminosity	The luminosity of Acrylic/Mica effect
	DWORD	Not supported	GlassType	The type of backdrop effect (0x0-0x4). 0x0=Blur. 0x01=Aero. 0x02=Acrylic. 0x03=Mica. 0x04=Solid.
	DWORD	Not supported	GlassOverrideBorder	Specifies that the effect should extend to the border. The default value is 0.	Disabling this option can significantly improve performance
	DWORD	Not supported	GlassCrossFadeTime	The cross fade time for backdrop switching. The default value is 87.
	DWORD	Not supported	GlassOverrideAccent	Overriding accent with the effect of OpenGlass. The default value is 0.
	DWORD	Not supported	GlassAdditionalPreScaleAmount	Additional prescaling factor for backdrop input image, the smaller the value the more significant the performance improvement, the lower the quality of the glass. The default value is 90% for Windows 10 but 95% for Windows 11.
	DWORD	Not supported	ForceAccentColorization	When this option is on, OpenGlass will always uses the colors from AccentColor and AccentColorInactive, which will ignore all the system settings related to color.	You can turn it on when there exists third-party softwares that break the auto-coloring.
	DWORD	Not supported	GlassCrossFadeEasingFunction	The easing function for cross fade animation. 0x0=Linear. 0x1=CubicBezier. The Default value is 0.

Tip

Check out the code to discover more details!

How to reload the configuration

OpenGlass does not provide any GUI nor commands to explicitly reload the configuration, you may consider using glass8's heritage AeroGlassGUI.exe to refresh some of the settings.
However, it's actually quite easy to do so in C/C++.

PostMessage(FindWindow(TEXT("Dwm"), nullptr), WM_THEMECHANGED, 0, 0);            // refresh part of the settings related to theme
PostMessage(FindWindow(TEXT("Dwm"), nullptr), WM_DWMCOLORIZATIONCHANGED, 0, 0);  // refresh part of the settings related to color/backdrop

About compatibility

• OpenGlass cannot be used with DWMBlurGlass as they belong to the same type of software.
• OpenGlass does not support rendering borders that are included in accents, so some softwares that turn on borders for accents such as TranslucentFlyouts will not be able to display borders.
• OpenGlass can be used with AWM, but CustomThemeMsstyle will not be available and you need to be careful about the order in which you execute and stop.

  • Good Example😘:

    execute OpenGlass
    execute AWM
    ...
    stop AWM
    stop OpenGlass

    (The first to execute should be stopped at last.)

  • Bad Example😭:
    execute OpenGlass
    execute AWM
    ...
    stop OpenGlass
    stop AWM

    In this case you are likely to get a crash of DWM or the other software working abnormally.

• OpenGlass can be used with most windhawk mods, but some may have compatibility issues, especially community or personally written mods that can't be found in the windhawk marketplace.
• It is not necessary to use the DComp Unlocker mod with OpenGlass, as OpenGlass already has this feature built-in.

Dependencies and References

Microsoft Research Detours Package

Detours is a software package for monitoring and instrumenting API calls on Windows.

VC-LTL - An elegant way to compile lighter binaries.

VC-LTL is an open source CRT library based on the MS VCRT that reduce program binary size and say goodbye to Microsoft runtime DLLs, such as msvcr120.dll, api-ms-win-crt-time-l1-1-0.dll and other dependencies.

Windows Implementation Libraries (WIL)

The Windows Implementation Libraries (WIL) is a header-only C++ library created to make life easier for developers on Windows through readable type-safe C++ interfaces for common Windows coding patterns.

Interop Compositor

Saved me some decompiling and reverse engineering time thanks to ADeltaX's blog!

Win32Acrylic

Win2D sucks!

AcrylicEverywhere

The predecessor of this project.

Loading Visual Styles Per-Application

It is possible for an application to load a style on a per-application basis using an undocumented API.

openglass's Issues

Titlebar colouring not working properly

For me and many others, GetWindowColorizationColor does not return the correct colour for the windows, instead it returns the colour black, in my local fork of OpenGlass, I propose adding a setting to take the window colour from the AccentColor reg key instead of using GetWindowColorizationColor, this would need to be cached of course as reading registry every time you need to get the colour to render is not efficient.

Lag when windows are minimized but not when appearing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcGJptMYSmM
video showcasing the issue

for some reason, when everything is minimized, any window that isnt minimized will lag, but there will be no lag if everything is not minimized

my settings

Composited text

Is there a way to enable composited text globally, the issue for me is that text color gets transparent on white background.
ExplorerBlurMica enabled that but only for the explorer.

Example

Is there any other way change the transparency of text besides dwm text composition ? I know there is a project MacType but its unstable and doesnt work good for my case.

Using a Theme Patcher reverts some Aero color settings on logoff

Note

This bug is not caused by OpenGlass, but it is basically the only program using these values, and it is very unlikely that Microsoft would fix this, considering that these values can only be set from either the Registry Editor or third-party tools.

Problem

The ColorizationColorBalance and ColorizationAfterglowBalance keys (stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM) get reset to their default values (set by explorer.exe) on every logoff (including shutdowns and restarts), changing how the Aero blur looks. (see the screenshots below)

This problem can be recreated on a fresh install of Windows with either SecureUXTheme (making it hook explorer doesn't affect anything) or UltraUXThemePatcher, which isn't good for the people trying to make their setup look like Windows 7.

Possible Solution/Workaround

Since this program hooks into DWM and not Explorer (the program that reverts these values), I suggest that these values get renamed to a different name that Explorer won't reset. (maybe AeroColorBalance and AeroAfterglowBalance?)

System Info

OS: Windows 10 22H2 (Build 19045.4529)
Tested theme: Aero10 v1.0.3-re
Tested theme patchers: SecureUXTheme v2.2.0 and UltraUXThemePatcher v4.4.2
Third-party software: (only a theme patcher is needed to recreate this bug)

Screenshots

Before Logoff (should stay the same after):

After Logoff (and after logon):