Ramen Software

As some of you know, Microsoft is working on an update for Windows 8.1, called “Update 1”. Also, some of you might know that 7+ Taskbar Tweaker doesn’t work with this update installed. There’s a topic on UserEcho about it, and users are wondering how come I don’t fix the issue. In this post, I’d like to shed some light on the situation.

Why doesn’t the tweaker work with the update installed?

It’s just an update, right? Not a new Windows version. The taskbar looks the same. How come that the tweaker is not working anymore?
Well, the thing is that the tweaker depends on the exact structure of many internal elements of explorer. Any small change can make the tweaker break, and the fact that it doesn’t can be attributed to the great care of Microsoft for backwards compatibility. At least, that’s the way it was until “Update 1”.

Since Windows 7, the earliest OS supported by the tweaker, Microsoft didn’t introduce major changes to the OS while the NT version number stayed the same. Even with Windows 7 SP1, the tweaker worked without adjustments. With Windows 8.1 Update 1, the situation is different: the OS has changed, but its version stayed the same.

What does it mean in the short term?

In order to add support for Windows 8.1 Update 1, lots of adjustments have to be made, similar to the adjustments I had to make when adding support for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.
While I’d be glad to add support right away, there are a couple of things to consider:

• Availability of the final RTM version of Windows 8.1 Update 1. To be able to add support for the OS, I need to be able to work with it. They say that there’s a leaked build of the RTM version, but recent news mention a newer version, which means that the leaked one is probably not RTM. Google for Windows 8.1 9600.17042.
• Availability of debug symbols. While they’re not a must, they significantly simplify the porting process. As far as I know, there are no debug symbols available for the binaries of Windows 8.1 Update 1 yet.
• Time. Porting requires time, and there’s not always plenty of it.

What does it mean in the long term?

The fact that Windows 8.1 Update 1 is the first time when the OS changes, but the OS version doesn’t, means that Microsoft is changing its tactics. It seems like Microsoft tries to move to a more rapid development cycle. The question is – how rapid is it going to be? If the updates are going to be too frequent, I might not be able to keep the tweaker updated.

How can I help?

Unless you work at Microsoft, you probably can’t help me with the first two points mentioned above. But you can help me with the third one.
You can donate the project to help me dedicate time for the porting.
Include the w8u1p (Windows 8.1 Update 1 Porting) word in the donation comments to specify that your donation is targeted for the porting.

Below is a progress bar of the donations, with the goal set as the estimated time the porting is going to take, with an average wage.

$1204 out of $1000

All donors will get access to early alpha versions during the porting process.
Also, the top three donors will get mentioned in the changelog.
If the goal is hit before the RTM is released or before the debug symbols become available, I’ll start working with what we have.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Update (April 14): The goal was reached! I want to thank everybody who took part and donated for the porting. The first alpha version is available for testing (more details).

Starting from today, I’m going to publish beta versions of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker along with the regular, stable releases.

There are several rationals for this decision:

• Avoiding bugs in stable releases. This is usually the main purpose of beta versions.
  Two of the tweaker’s most recent releases were followed by a hotfix the day after, just because I missed a minor thing or two. This is also quite relevant to the next point.

• Minimizing the frequency of update notifications. The tweaker automatically notifies when a new version is available. While this is a great feature, it can be annoying if the notification appears frequently, especially if it appears two days in a row.
  Silent updates were suggested as an alternative solution, but first, they have to be implemented. Second, I’m not sure that 7+ Taskbar Tweaker is the right tool for this feature. It’s a low-level system tool, and it can screw things up, so if something goes wrong you can see it was caused by an update. Silent updates are available (off by default) starting with v4.5.10.

• Providing fixes which affect a very limited amount of users. There are issues which affect only users with a particular setup, a unique combination of options, etc. In such cases, it’s important to provide them with a fix, but it’s not a good idea to push this update to most of the other users, especially if the latest version was just recently released (see previous point).

• (Added in 2018) Providing limited support for Windows 10 insider builds. See the following blog post: 7+ Taskbar Tweaker and Windows 10 insider builds.

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Version 0.2 of Unchecky was just released!

The main and most visible change is the new interface of the main Unchecky program.

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About two weeks ago I introduced the Unchecky program. In this period of time, Unchecky was translated to 8 languages, the Unchecky website was translated to 3 languages, Unchecky was reviewed by numerous well-known websites, and I’ve received lots of positive feedback.

But Unchecky has one important limitation, which was raised right after Unchecky was released – It can’t handle the web. While most programs present their offers in the installation process, some are showing a checkbox in the browser, before downloading. And obviously, this checkbox is checked by default.
Read More…

Nowadays it’s a reality that many software installations are bundled with potentially unwanted programs, such as toolbars or scareware system cleaners. If you’re a power user, you probably know that you have to be very careful while installing software, because if you miss a checkbox you might spend hours afterwards cleaning up the mess. If you’re an average PC user, you possibly leave everything by default, thus installing lots of additional unwanted programs without even knowing it.

I always thought that it’s wrong to provide these potentially unwanted programs by default, but the reason for this is clear: the more users install these, the more money the setup owner makes, usually at the expense of your privacy. Well, it doesn’t have to be that way anymore, thanks to Unchecky!

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7+ Taskbar Tweaker v4.4 is out.

• New option: Hide the Start button.
  The option works for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
  To open the Start menu in Windows 7, you can click on the corner where the Start button was located.
  To open the Start screen in Windows 8.1, you can click the lower-left corner of the screen.

  Before
  

  After
  

• New option: Show Start menu/Start screen by double/middle clicking on the empty space.
  7+ Taskbar Tweaker allows you to assign an action to double middle clicking on the empty space of the taskbar.
  Now there’s one more option to choose from.

• Advanced Options Editor.
  Read More…

7+ Taskbar Tweaker v4.3 is out, which finally introduces support for Windows 8.1.
In addition, the new version contains some bug fixes and small improvements, so it’s a recommended update even for non-Windows 8.1 users.

Here is an experimental version of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker which mostly works on Windows 8.1 Preview:

Removed. 7+ Taskbar Tweaker now officially supports Windows 8.1.

Options that currently do not work:

• Thumbnails: Left click on the active thumbnail minimizes the window.
• Combining: Combine grouped buttons.
• Other: Don’t show jump list when dragging a taskbar item towards the desktop.

Technical information

So, why did the options above stop working? Not much was changed about the taskbar in Windows 8.1, after all.

Short answer
Because Microsoft uses better code optimization, it became more difficult to control the code functionality.

Long answer
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Did the above ever happen to you?

I sometimes encounter the issue, which is not critical, but may be very annoying at times.
I’ve also received a couple of bug reports about it, so I decided to take a closer look.
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Quick Folder Menu is a tiny application that opens a menu of the folder you specify as a command line parameter.

It’s mostly based on an AutoIt script by LarsJ.

It has a couple of bugs I don’t know how to fix, e.g. it doesn’t always close when you click away (Update: fixed in v1.1).
I hardly know how it works at all. But it works, and I find it handy, so in case you might make use of it, grab it below.

qfmenu.zip (3.73 kB)

The source code is available on GitHub.