Aero Glass 1.2.5 for Windows 8.1

Razvan Mihai Asmanow Serea

08 May 2014 - 14:15

Aero Glass

Experience the native look of Aero Glass interface on Windows 8.x This utility returns the complete glass effect into windows frames.

Apply glass look to windows borders
Blur the content behind the borders to improve UI experience
Change amount of transparency in Control panels directly
Change inactive windows borders color
Skin windows borders (add glow, shadows etc.) without changing Windows theme
Fully native including MSStyle themes and DWM API compatibility
Low resources usage

Glass look

Your windows will be rendered with transparent borders. This look allows you to see what is behind the border. The key element is the blurring of content behind the glass borders to prevent it from being too clear and disturbing. The result is very smart window border!

Fully native

The utility is completely integrated into Desktop Window Manager without breaking any system protection or modifying system files. All rendering is done via native Direct3D device. Any colorization settings adjusted in Windows Control Panels are respected. Use color intensity slider to adjust the amount of the transparency. No custom skinning engine used. Due to the native nature of this utility your Windows theme is composited together with the glass effect. All features controlled through DWM API (e.g. DwmEnableBlurBehindWindow or DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea) are supported including the taskbar or custom Start menu blur effect.

Low resources usage

This library tries to utilize all DWM resources as much as possible to minimize RAM and VRAM usage. No redundant objects are created, no background service is running. The result is light-weight library which behaves exactly in the same way as Aero Glass in Windows 7 did. No performance degradation!

Theme your windows

You can change the look of your windows borders completely without touching your Windows theme or using unsigned theme. This allows you to bring back several effects such as window shadow, caption glow effect, rounded borders or simply change the appearance of caption buttons. You just modify single bitmap in your favorite image editor and everything will look as you want!

What's new in this version:

hardcoded symbol patterns for Win8.1 Spring2014 update
some minor fixes
added setup option to adjust access permissions for those who don't know how to set them on their own.

Aero Glass can be downloaded for free. It can be used on unlimited number of computers and for unlimited time. It also provides glass effect with all of its features specified on this website. However, it displays small copyright notification several minutes after its execution and small subtle copyright watermark is displayed in the right bottom corner of your desktop. The keys to access the private version can be generated HERE.

Download: Aero Glass 1.3 For Windows 8 | 1.7 MB (Donationware)
Download: Aero Glass 1.2.5 For Windows 8.1 | 1.8 MB
View: Aero Glass Homepage | Release Notes

24 Comments

Microsoft should buy this, iron out the bugs, and release it as a PowerToy.

68k said,

Microsoft should buy this, iron out the bugs, and release it as a PowerToy.

Since they already own the code for Aero I'm sure they could do so without buying anything.

Microsoft should just put Aero back into Windows 8.x

Yeah with the upcoming updates that will bring the start menu and eventually windowed Metro apps, it will be nice to get Aero back. It will actually fit much better with the rest of the desktop artwork and iconography than the flat metro look unless they flatten everything else.

What's with the old Windows 7 esque close and maximize buttons. I want to keep the current flat ones in Windows 8.

AsherGZ said,

What's with the old Windows 7 esque close and maximize buttons. I want to keep the current flat ones in Windows 8.

Since this restores Aero glass the buttons are obviously going to be Aero style.

AsherGZ said,

What's with the old Windows 7 esque close and maximize buttons. I want to keep the current flat ones in Windows 8.

that's just a custom style. you can do several things with it even keep the 8 style buttons if you want (there's an entire thread linked on the site towards custom button styles)

Easiest way to enable Glass without adding themes/atlases is by unchecking the shiny glass theme atlas option when installing.

Don't install the Atlas resource with the program and it will just apply the glass to the standard theme

i like the fact that this program exists, but i was never a fan of Aero™

i am a fan of Performance™

garou_heki said,

i like the fact that this program exists, but i was never a fan of Aero™

i am a fan of Performance™

Same here. My gf can run like the wind, be she's as ugly as ####™.

Seriously though, if Aero degrades the performance of your machine, you need a better machine.

garou_heki said,

i like the fact that this program exists, but i was never a fan of Aero™

i am a fan of Performance™

The performance impact should be nonexistant on anything made in the last ~15yrs or so, the performance problems were resolved back when it was in beta so it's safe to go back to now.

RandPC said,

The performance impact should be nonexistant on anything made in the last ~15yrs or so, the performance problems were resolved back when it was in beta so it's safe to go back to now.

Still don't see any point in installing something like this that has to even run anything just so I can see behind the borders!

Not to mention it's nowhere near the real Aero Glass effect. Anyone who calls this Aero Glass is blind.

He's been scamming people out of money with this for a while now. Find the thread on My Digital Life and you can see for yourself.

It's the closes thing that we have with Glass + Blur. I don't see any scam here. No one is forced to pay it anyways.

cork1958 said,

Still don't see any point in installing something like this that has to even run anything just so I can see behind the borders!

Fair enough, it's not to everyone's taste. I'm fond of it though.

Aero speeds things up as you enable the gpu to take care of video, fonts, smooth scroll etc.

It works fine on crappy x1200 and Intel gma 950s circa 2006! Smooth as butter

sinetheo said,

Aero speeds things up as you enable the gpu to take care of video, fonts, smooth scroll etc.

It works fine on crappy x1200 and Intel gma 950s circa 2006! Smooth as butter

That has nothing to do with Aero Glass.

D. FiB3R said,

Same here. My gf can run like the wind, be she's as ugly as ####™.

Seriously though, if Aero degrades the performance of your machine, you need a better machine.

it degrades the performance of every machine, its just when you have an alien supercomputer from the future, like you, you dont notice it, that doesnt mean it doesnt hinder the performance

i use aero, because i got bored of the classic 98 theme, that is last available in windows 7

it doesnt affect my performance in any visible matter

garou_heki said,

it degrades the performance of every machine, its just when you have an alien supercomputer from the future, like you, you dont notice it, that doesnt mean it doesnt hinder the performance

i use aero, because i got bored of the classic 98 theme, that is last available in windows 7

it doesnt affect my performance in any visible matter

lulz. I'm still running an old C2D 6600 @ 2.4GHz from 2007, and it wasn't top of the range back then either.

garou_heki said,

i like the fact that this program exists, but i was never a fan of Aero™

i am a fan of Performance™

In this day and age the performance implications of something like Aero are completely negligible. This isn't 1995 with Pentium 166 CPU's, 64 Mb RAM and S3 Trio GPU machines anymore...

garou_heki said,

i am a fan of Performance™

Do you want Aero AND performance? Turn off time-wasting animations and fading: http://www.videoproductions.co...in7-performance-options.png

Like others above, I've installed Windows 7 on 2005 hardware, and performance is 'as smooth as butter'.

How much RAM do you have? If only 512MB/1GB, and you've got a web browser open, that's why.

Of course, any additional effect degrades the computer performance, the question is just how much - rendering glass effect just takes several microseconds. But the main point here is that the performance is not worse than original blur effect implementation on Win7. There are also parts that are much better optimized.

GRAPHICAL User Interface. People prefer using things that are pleasing to THEIR eye. If performance is compromised, it's real simple, turn it off.

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Aero Glass 1.2.5 for Windows 8.1

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