7+ Taskbar Tweaker for Windows 10 Anniversary Update: early alpha version

Microsoft has announced that the second update of Windows 10, the Anniversary Update, is going to be available on August 2. While the update is not available yet, there are rumors that the update will be based on Windows 10 build 14393, which is available for the participants of the Windows Insider program.

Meanwhile, I have updated 7+ Taskbar Tweaker to be compatible with Windows 10 build 14390. There’s an alpha version available, which is functional, but not complete: some of the options still don’t work properly with the new build. Also, the alpha version might work for Windows 10 build 14393, but it wasn’t tested. Those of you who have donated can get the alpha version here (the link was removed).

Alpha version changelog

  • v5.1.9.2 (August 6): Implemented the Display seconds on the tray clock option, fixed the Hide the Start button option for 64-bit.
  • v5.1.9.3 (August 13): Fixed the Combine grouped buttons option, fixed labels showing up for grouped buttons with the Don't combine grouped buttons option.
  • v5.1.9.4 (August 19): Improved the combining options, implemented the tray_icons_padding advanced option for Windows 10, other fixes.

Update (September 1): The first public beta version is available! Get it here.
Update (September 9): Windows 10 Anniversary Update is fully supported by 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.

Posted in Software, Updates on July 25th, 2016. 201 Comments.

Textify

Have you ever wanted to copy some text from a dialog box which doesn’t provide such functionality?
Textify was created to solve this problem: you can point your mouse over the text, click on the mouse shortcut (Shift + Middle click by default), and get a selectable view of the text.

Download

exe textify_setup.exe (593.16 kB, changelog)
Latest version: v1.10.4
Read More…

Posted in Releases, Software on March 5th, 2016. 800 Comments.

7+ Taskbar Tweaker: Windows 10, the first major update

Hi guys and gals!

A couple of days ago, the first major update for Windows 10 was officially released. Unfortunately, the update has introduced enough changes to break compatibility with 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, as many of you have noticed.

I can’t tell when a compatible version of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker will be ready, but I hope to make an alpha version available in a week or two.

Update: The new version is now officially supported. Get 7+ Taskbar Tweaker here.

Posted in Software, Updates on November 17th, 2015. 54 Comments.

Unchecky v0.4

I’m happy to announce that Unchecky v0.4 is now available!

Here is what’s new in this version:

Support for browser offers

This feature was requested since the first version of Unchecky was released, and I’ve been planning to implement it for a long time. Now, Unchecky is finally able to combat offers in the browser. Just like for native installers, the checkbox is automatically unchecked, and a warning is displayed when a checkbox with an offer is clicked.

Warning tooltips

When you click on a button which causes an installation of a potentially unwanted program, Unchecky shows a warning message box. But until now, you could not know whether a button causes an installation of a potentially unwanted program before clicking on it. Unchecky v0.4 provides a new option, which allows to display a tooltip while hovering on such a button. That way, you can know which buttons to avoid even before clicking on them!
The new option can be enabled in the Settings page of Unchecky.


Read More…

Posted in Software, Updates on October 12th, 2015. 8 Comments.

DumpAddressColor (an OllyDbg 2 plugin)

Colorizes the double-words in the CPU dump of OllyDbg 2 by the following rules:
Red: an address to a code block of a module.
Magenta: an address to a non-code block of a module.
Yellow: an address to a non-module memory block.
Black: a handle of a window which belongs to the debuggee process.

The colors can be changed in the .ini file.

Limitations: double-words across rows are not processed.

zip dump_address_color.zip (5.38 kB)

The source code is available on GitHub.

Posted in Releases, Software on August 28th, 2015. 4 Comments.

DumpHistoryNavFixer (an OllyDbg 2 plugin)

This plugin fixes a minor, but annoying issue with the CPU dump history navigation on OllyDbg 2.

Without the plugin (clickable):

With the plugin (clickable):

zip dump_history_nav_fixer.zip (112.31 kB)

Posted in Releases, Software on August 28th, 2015. No Comments.

FollowImmediateConstant (an OllyDbg 2 plugin)

Adds the missing option to follow immediate constant in OllyDbg 2, just like in OllyDbg 1.10.

Screenshot (clickable):

zip follow_immediate_constant.zip (21.58 kB)

Posted in Releases, Software on August 28th, 2015. No Comments.

7+ Taskbar Tweaker v5.0, with Windows 10 support

After extensive alpha and beta testing, 7+ Taskbar Tweaker v5.0, the first stable version to support Windows 10, is available!

I want to thank everybody who supported the porting effort: Mike T, Fraser Ntukula, and other contributors.

Posted in Software, Updates on August 22nd, 2015. 49 Comments.

Getting brighter colors in Windows 10

Note: Things work differently in newer Windows 10 versions, and this tool might not be relevant anymore. See this comment for more details.


(Top = before, bottom = after)

Windows 10 allows you to customize the taskbar and start menu colors, but it provides only a limited set of predefined colors. In addition, no matter which color you’ll pick, the taskbar will end up being dark. I searched, but haven’t found a straightforward way to have a bright taskbar on Windows 10. Fortunately, I have discovered that there’s an undocumented registry key which makes explorer use an alternative color calculation algorithm, which in turn produces brighter colors. You can see the difference in the example image above.

I wrote a quick application, Windows 10 Color Control, which allows you to modify the Windows 10 colors, and to get this alternative color calculation algorithm. The original Windows 10 calculation algorithm is referred to as the “New auto-color accent algorithm”, according to the undocumented registry value name.

Download

zip Windows 10 color control.zip (112.8 kB)

Source code

https://github.com/m417z/Windows-10-Color-Control
Read More…

Posted in Reverse Engineering on August 19th, 2015. 137 Comments.

Symbols on Demand (an OllyDbg plugin)

OllyDbg is able to use dbghelp.dll and symsrv.dll to show extended debug information, such as the module source code (if referenced by the debug information) or module symbols from a PDB file (which can be fetched from the Microsoft Symbol Server for system modules). The problem is that if you turn on this option, module loading becomes much slower. On the other hand, this information is very handy, so there’s a dilemma as of whether to turn it on.

The Symbols on Demand plugin provides the best of both worlds: it disables loading of this extended debug information by default, but allows to load it explicitly for any module, at any time. Using this approach, loading is still fast, but if you need to load extended debug information for a module, you can easily do that.

OllyDbg v1.10 and v2.01 are supported. For OllyDbg v1.10, there’s additional functionality: you can set the symbols search path, which is set by default to SRV*.\Symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols. You can also choose to retrieve undecorated symbol names. These options can be set in the INI file of OllyDbg, in the plugin’s section.

zip symbols_on_demand.zip (4.96 kB)

For your convenience, here are the dbghelp.dll and symsrv.dll files:

zip dbghelp_symsrv.zip (579.8 kB)

The source code is available on GitHub.

Posted in Releases, Software on August 8th, 2015. 9 Comments.