OpenGlass

A replica of the dead software glass8, also known as the upstream project of DWMBlurGlass.

[!NOTE] This project currently maintains two branches

• master It has many features and relatively fewer bugs. It depends on dcomp and Windows.UI.Composition. It is recommended for those who want to experience more features or are using Windows 11.
• legacy It has few features, but its performance is much better than the master branch. It is implemented in a similar way to glass8. It is recommended for those who wish to experience the high performance glass effect. It is NOT available for Windows 11.

I don't have that much time to maintain both branches at the same time, so they may rarely get updated, but feel free to submit PRs.

This branch works for Windows 10 1809 to Windows 11 23H2.

Some simple tests show that at lower blur radius this branch performs slightly worse than glass8, but at higher blur radius the performance will be a bit better. For some applications where DwmEnableBlurBehind and DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea are used in combination, this branch performs almost twice as well as glass8.

[!IMPORTANT]
This software is intended for advanced users only. If you are a beginner and you do not have deeper knowledge of Windows (such as registry editing etc.) you should not install this software.
For the average users, you should consider using DWMBlurGlass.

[!WARNING]
OpenGlass does NOT support and is NOT intended to support Windows Insider Preview, so if you want to use it in these Windows versions please do it at your own risk.

How to use this software

1. Extract the files from the Release page to C:\, but please don't put them in C:\Users\*, otherwise OpenGlass won't work properly.
2. Run install.bat as administrator, this will create a scheduled task for you to run the OpenGlass helper process on boot, which will monitor and automatically inject its component into Dwm.
3. Run startup.bat as administrator, this will run the helper process manually.
4. When you use it for the first time or just after updating your system, OpenGlass will try to download the symbol files and you will see its download progress bar in the taskbar, but please don't close it and be patient for about 15s. When the symbol files are ready, enjoy!
5. When you want to stop using OpenGlass or update the version of OpenGlass, running shutdown.bat will remove the effects of OpenGlass for you and exit the helper process. At this time, you can either replace the OpenGlass files or continue to run uninstall.bat and manually delete the remaining files to complete the uninstallation.
6. When you experience a crash, OpenGlass is supposed to generate a large memory dump file in the dumps directory of the folder where it is located, please submit it to the developer if possible, this can help fix known or potential issues.

Documentation (Migrate from glass8 to OpenGlass)

The following table demonstrates the similarities and differences between these two software.

[!NOTE]

1. Most of the OpenGlass settings are stored in the HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM and HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM, but some registry items are stored only in HKLM and will remain constant at runtime.
2. All external resources referenced by OpenGlass must ensure that it can be accessed by DWM, so paths like C:\Users\* are invalid.
3. Normally, OpenGlass uses the udwm internal API to get the calculated color instead of reading the registry directly to get the color.

• Not implemented means that this feature has not yet been implemented but is possible in the future.
• Not supported means that this feature is impossible to be implemented in current structure.

[!TIP]
Check out the code to discover more details!

How to reload the configuration

OpenGlass does not provide any GUI nor commands to explicitly reload the configuration, you may consider using glass8's heritage AeroGlassGUI.exe to refresh some of the settings.
However, it's actually quite easy to do so in C/C++.

PostMessage(FindWindow(TEXT("Dwm"), nullptr), WM_THEMECHANGED, 0, 0);            // refresh part of the settings related to theme
PostMessage(FindWindow(TEXT("Dwm"), nullptr), WM_DWMCOLORIZATIONCHANGED, 0, 0);  // refresh part of the settings related to color/backdrop

About compatibility

• OpenGlass cannot be used with DWMBlurGlass as they belong to the same type of software.
• OpenGlass does not support rendering borders that are included in accents, so some softwares that turn on borders for accents such as TranslucentFlyouts will not be able to display borders.

• OpenGlass can be used with AWM, but CustomThemeMsstyle will not be available and you need to be careful about the order in which you execute and stop.

  • Good Example😘:

    execute OpenGlass
    execute AWM
    ...
    stop AWM
    stop OpenGlass

    (The first to execute should be stopped at last.)

  • Bad Example😭:
    execute OpenGlass
    execute AWM
    ...
    stop OpenGlass
    stop AWM

    In this case you are likely to get a crash of DWM or the other software working abnormally.

• OpenGlass can be used with most windhawk mods, but some may have compatibility issues, especially community or personally written mods that can't be found in the windhawk marketplace.
• It is not necessary to use the DComp Unlocker mod with OpenGlass, as OpenGlass already has this feature built-in.

Dependencies and References

Banner for OpenGlass

Provided by @aubymori
Wallpaper: metalheart jawn #2 by @kfh83

Microsoft Research Detours Package

Detours is a software package for monitoring and instrumenting API calls on Windows.

VC-LTL - An elegant way to compile lighter binaries.

VC-LTL is an open source CRT library based on the MS VCRT that reduce program binary size and say goodbye to Microsoft runtime DLLs, such as msvcr120.dll, api-ms-win-crt-time-l1-1-0.dll and other dependencies.

Windows Implementation Libraries (WIL)

The Windows Implementation Libraries (WIL) is a header-only C++ library created to make life easier for developers on Windows through readable type-safe C++ interfaces for common Windows coding patterns.

Interop Compositor

Saved me some decompiling and reverse engineering time thanks to ADeltaX's blog!

Win32Acrylic

Win2D sucks!

AcrylicEverywhere

The predecessor of this project.

Loading Visual Styles Per-Application

It is possible for an application to load a style on a per-application basis using an undocumented API.