win8china had reported that "MS will release a public beta around Sept. 30". I started a thread but it could take some time to appear.
To change the background image of the Metro Ui. You need to open "SHSXS.DLL" with Resource Hacker. Go to the 2 PNG's, 5231 and 5232. I saved 5231 to desktop. Opened it in Paint Shop Pro. Copied a picture from my Comp. and pasted it as a new layer onto 5231. I think this avoids altering dimensions and size of original. Then, saved it to Desktop and opened Resource Hacker. Went to original 5231 and replaced it with my modded copy. PNG/5231/1033. Then i replaced the original SHSXS.DLL in Windows. Rebooted and Bam!!! It works. But for god's sake make sure you keep a copy of original SHSXS.DLL. I should also mention that i haven't, as yet, done anything with 5232 so when you reboot you will notice the green band behind the tiles which, i guess is 5232. I figure you guys can work the rest out for yourselves.
If our dear members have ideas about this news, I hope they could wait for the thread to come out. I may edit the post later since I hope this thread is mainly about personalizing and customizing the Metro UI. Thanks.
I am assuming it won't be so hard for somebody to make a small app to change the background once ya'll get it sorted. I can't wait for it, keep up the good work.
You may have wondered "where have safe mode gone?" It's not gone, and is replaced by another mechanism, when you boot into win8(build 8102 of course), and got into the black screen with WDP showing on top and the "dot animation", tap on F8 until you see "Preparing Options" appear. Then you will have the Metro screen, 4 options, you can use either the mouse or up/down arrow to toggle: 1. Continue - exit to win7 (I have win8/win7/XP on my HDD) 2. Use another OS - well, it still doesn't show the XP, only win7 and win8 for choice, seems MS is determined to dump XP(?) 3. Trouble-shoot 4. Turn Off your PC OK, if you choose trouble-shoot, there is yet another 3 options: 1. Refresh your PC (i.e. just reloading win8) 2. Reset - this will return win8 to original state, all your files will be gone. 3. Advance Options. On choosing Advanced options, 4 more choices: 1. System restore 2. Image recovery 3. Auto repair 4. Command prompt Maybe some guys with win8 on a virtual machine or have a camera could show us some shots, but you could just try it out, probably you would love it.
Thanks, however, to activate safe mode on boot-up is : When in the boot menu, choose win8, then shift-F8 - you will get the menu screen just as win7, including safe-mode.
Here a list of Registry Controls for the Startscreen, you can do some finetuning with them. Code: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\Grid] "Layout_MaximumRowCount"=dword:0000010 "Grid_ForceDPI"=- "TileLowDPIOverride"=- "CacheEnabled"=- "Tile_AutoZoomEnterDelay"=- "Tile_AutoZoomLeaveDelay"=- "Tile_AutoScrollRegionWidth"=- "Tile_AutoScrollMinVelocity"=- "Tile_AutoScrollMaxVelocity"=- "Tile_AutoZoomRegionHeight"=- "Tile_AutoZoomEnterMaxDisplacement"=- "Tile_AutoZoomLeaveMaxDisplacement"=- "Tile_RearrangePreviewOffset"=- "GroupDropOutside_CancelDistance"=- "TileDropOutside_SameGroup_CancelDistance"=- "TileDropOutside_NotSameGroup_CancelDistance"=- "GroupCrossSlide_MaxVelocity"=- "TileCrossSlide_ShortThreshold"=- "TileCrossSlide_SpeedBumpThreshold"=- "TileCrossSlide_LongThreshold"=- "TileCrossSlide_MaxVelocity"=- "Tile_EnableReflowDuringRearrange"=- "Tile_ReflowDuringRearrangeDelay"=- "Tile_ReflowDuringRearrangeMaxVelocity"=- "Launcher_SessionLoginAnimation_OnShow"=- "Launcher_AnimationOffset_Launcher_Cx"=- "Launcher_AnimationOffset_Launcher_Cy"=- "Launcher_AnimationOffset_IndividualTower_Offset"=- "Launcher_AnimationOffset_Launcher_Dismiss"=- "LauncherGridControl_CompressedRetryTimer"=- "LauncherGridControl_EnableAutoZoom"=- "DesktopTile_ForceFallback"=- "Realization_RegionWidthScale"=- "Tile_EnableSelectionAnimation"=- Use DWORD's, ex. "Layout_MaximumRowCount"=dword:0000010 Overwrites the Default MAX Value of the Rows on your Startscreen, on some Resolutions this should give you one more Row. Edit: Updated with a few more entries. Play around with the following entries to change how the Startscreen animation (when you press windows key) looks like. Code: "Launcher_AnimationOffset_Launcher_Cx" "Launcher_AnimationOffset_Launcher_Cy" "Launcher_AnimationOffset_IndividualTower_Offset" "Launcher_AnimationOffset_Launcher_Dismiss" "Launcher_SessionLoginAnimation_OnShow" < (not soo useful, just gives you the session login animation) Get rid of Startbutton completly. Code: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer] "YouBettaHideYoPearl"=dword:0000001 There is alot more Tweaks and stuff but i guess they will get locked/removed on RTM, like always...
you can show Windows XP in your bootloader..it can be enabled by by choosing XP as the default OS in your boot.ini..but the disadvantage is that bootloader changes back to the dos mode like we previously had in Windows 7 & vista...