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Windhawk Windows classic theme mod for Windows 11

windhawk.net

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Re: Windhawk Windows classic theme mod for Windows 11

#71

Post by jstimpfle »

Krssst wrote: post #8
mattferderer wrote: post #5

Can't speak for this product but disabling a lot of the animations, gradients, shadows & visual effects has made Windows 11 run significantly better on the computers I have it on. They didn't seem to add much value anyways. I'm a fan of a lot of the user experience improvements being made in Windows over the last decade, such as Terminal, running Linux, Power Toys features, screenshots & recording, Paint finally gett…

Disabling animations makes everything better no matter the OS. When executing a sequence of actions, not having to wait 100-300ms for the device to show some random animation before inputing the next action is a time saver and a removes the "why is my computer/phone wasting my time" feeling. Human reaction time is around 200ms but in a sequence of actions, we don't need visual feedback to move to the next action; it'…

I agree there are many bad timer-waster animations. But animations can be a good thing. Take scrolling as an example. Pressing page-down on a text-page or in a text-editor, without animation, it takes me a lot of time and energy to find the place where I left off reading or editing before scrolling. A good animation can save a lot of time here. It's similar with other operations -- and I agree that those operations that we don't do that often tend to be the ones that profit more from animation, while the ones where we already know in advance what will happen can be made worse by animation. I think an animation should never slow down the user, they should not be blocking. An unfinished animation should not prevent the user from typing the next action.

Re: Windhawk Windows classic theme mod for Windows 11

#72

Post by oezi »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #47
mattferderer wrote: post #5

Can't speak for this product but disabling a lot of the animations, gradients, shadows & visual effects has made Windows 11 run significantly better on the computers I have it on. They didn't seem to add much value anyways. I'm a fan of a lot of the user experience improvements being made in Windows over the last decade, such as Terminal, running Linux, Power Toys features, screenshots & recording, Paint finally gett…

The Win11 screenshot tool is a travesty. It now takes multiple seconds to initialize, plus additional delay in actually selecting what you want to capture. The previous iteration was instantaneous. I have lost many opportunities to screenshot something from a screen share because of this trash performance.

Win+Print = takes screenshot and saves to Pictures/Screenshots/

Re: Windhawk Windows classic theme mod for Windows 11

#73

Post by carlosjobim »

Veliladon wrote: post #6

> The mod injects only in the process Winlogon.exe, and exits once the handle of the memory area is closed. It does not hook any functions. Yep. Sure. Going to let a Russian utility fuck with winlogon.exe. Excellent idea.

Look at the top of this page. It says "hacker news".

Re: Windhawk Windows classic theme mod for Windows 11

#74

Post by accrual »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #47
mattferderer wrote: post #5

Can't speak for this product but disabling a lot of the animations, gradients, shadows & visual effects has made Windows 11 run significantly better on the computers I have it on. They didn't seem to add much value anyways. I'm a fan of a lot of the user experience improvements being made in Windows over the last decade, such as Terminal, running Linux, Power Toys features, screenshots & recording, Paint finally gett…

The Win11 screenshot tool is a travesty. It now takes multiple seconds to initialize, plus additional delay in actually selecting what you want to capture. The previous iteration was instantaneous. I have lost many opportunities to screenshot something from a screen share because of this trash performance.

I agree, even on fast hardware there is a lot of unnecessary delay trying to take a screenshot.

My old workflow from the Win2k/XP days was: Print Screen, Win + R, type mspaint, Enter, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+S, Enter, done. Still feels faster than watching my screen fade in and out for the snipping tool.

Re: Windhawk Windows classic theme mod for Windows 11

#75

Post by accrual »

Dennip wrote: post #34
remir wrote: post #14

I wish there was a "power user" mode in Windows that you could activate and you'd get the ability to have classic themes (my MS themselves), classic Control Panel, no constant nudging, no weather/Xbox/Solitaire apps, etc...

THe settings siutation is so annoying, there are still so many options locked away inside control panel and the new settings app has a few that dont exist in control panel, its so fragmented.

I find myself reaching for the Control Panel all the time in Windows 11. I won't go into the main settings panel unless it's the only way.

Re: Windhawk Windows classic theme mod for Windows 11

#76

Post by Muromec »

Veliladon wrote: post #6

> The mod injects only in the process Winlogon.exe, and exits once the handle of the memory area is closed. It does not hook any functions. Yep. Sure. Going to let a Russian utility fuck with winlogon.exe. Excellent idea.

just add the r===ain keyboard to input sources and you will be fine.

Re: Windhawk Windows classic theme mod for Windows 11

#77

Post by accrual »

oybng wrote: post #25

It's incredible the effort Windows 10/11 users will go to in order to reach a somewhat functional and reliable computing experience via third party modifications, yet Linux is somehow too much effort. Just look at the instructions on that page..

For some it's just fun. Changing things because we can. I was a huge tinkerer in the XP days, I'd test out every tweak and tool I could get my hands on and would reinstall the OS every couple months. I'd use Resource Hacker to change out the XP flag icons, put my initials on the start button, etc. It wasn't about making it more usable so much as it was just making it mine.

It makes me happy to see newer generations still doing the same stuff, granted its much more complex to do this work on Win11 vs XP.

Re: Windhawk Windows classic theme mod for Windows 11

#78

Post by accrual »

zerr wrote: post #4

I also do miss the Windows 7 Aero theme.

Me too! The Aero effect still holds up great today IMO.

Kind of fun to imagine some hybrid between Aero and Apple's new glass effect. Imagine if Aero could "bend light" instead of just applying a blur effect.

Re: Windhawk Windows classic theme mod for Windows 11

#79

Post by accrual »

m417z wrote: post #23
zerr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why such a simple UI utility app needed a VSCodium/Electron UI? The author seems to be well versed in Win32 API, so why not just learn the GUI part as well? It's not that hard.

The reason the Windhawk UI is based on VSCodium is mainly for the mod editing functionality. VSCodium with clangd are used for C++ intellisense out of the box. You might say that many users don't care about mod development and don't need it. I agree, and I have it on my list to create a lite Windhawk version which doesn't depend on VSCodium. Note that VSCodium is only used for the UI. When Windhawk is running in the…

Sounds like a reasonable trade off to me. Improves your dev experience and users still get a fast binary.

Thanks for this by the way. Carrying the torch of Windows modding in the future!

Re: Windhawk Windows classic theme mod for Windows 11

#80

Post by orbital-decay »

m417z wrote: post #37
rikafurude21 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've come across Windhawk before but the mods being just C++ programs seemed a little suspicious to me, how do you make sure the mods dont include malware?

When you install or run a program, how do you make sure it doesn't include malware? I assume that you check for the author's record/reputation, and perhaps look at the source code if it's available. It's similar with Windhawk mods. The GitHub and X profiles are verified to be the profiles of the author, so you can decide whether you trust them. The source code is available, so you can inspect it as well. Mods are sin…

To review these third-party mods one needs to understand C++, Windows programming, and fairly obscure theming-related parts of its internals, some of which are undocumented/reverse engineered, and many have poorly understood side effects. This is a pretty specific combination of skills that slowly approaches arcane status, even if might feel otherwise to some. But again, larger apps are indeed harder to review than this.

(this particular mod is 100% innocuous, though)

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