BorderSkin 0.3 - Aero Glass On XP/7/8 by komalo

8 by komalo

Border Skin
Border Skin is a free portable software to skin the windows borders by skins composed of png images with the support of several features like Blur, Reflection and Aero Explorer, it supports Windows XP/Vista/7/8.

Author
Mohamed Kamal Kamaly

Version
0.3

Download
github.com/mohamedkomalo/Borde…

Requirements
Works on: XP/Vista/7/8
.Net Framework 3.5 Or Higher : www.microsoft.com/downloads/de…
Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013 : www.microsoft.com/en-us/downlo…

Source Code
current development: github.com/mohamedkomalo/Borde…

LayeredForms: github.com/mohamedkomalo/Layer…

WindowsHook: github.com/mohamedkomalo/Windo…

the first unreleased autoit version: github.com/mohamedkomalo/Borde…

Change Log (0.3)

* BorderSkin is now open source

* BorderSkin is now written in C#* support skinning both 32bit and 64bit at the same time

* extracted "WindowsHook", "LayeredForms" and "WinApiWrappers" as seperate component that can be used in other projects

* support win7 and win8, regardless of whether DWM (Aero) is enabled, When it is enabled with transparency, BorderSkin will use the Aero's blur, however if transparency is disabled BorderSkin will manually blur the background.

* New better looking blur

* Default theme has been changed to Sharp 2.1 by rdtsod.deviantart.com/ , but will still have the Aero theme

* add all submitted language files by default to BorderSkin (Chineese, Vietnamese, Français, Dutch 1, Deutsch 2)

* temporary unavailable features
 * menu show when down arrow in explorer is temporary unavailable for this verison (but auto complete still work)

 * text not get truncated and ends with ellipses when width of window is less than width of text

 * "Transparency" option in BorderSkin is enabled by default and can't be changed

How To Install
Extract the zip file and you are done

How To Uninstall
1 - Make sure that run at startup option is not enabled, if it is enabled, disable it .
2 - Simply delete the folder that contains the program data

Other Versions
Here: borderskin.deviantart.com/gall…

Language Files
Here: borderskin.deviantart.com/gall…

Themes
Normal Skins: borderskin.deviantart.com/gall…
Explorer Skins: borderskin.deviantart.com/gall…
Incompatible Skins: borderskin.deviantart.com/gall…
- Please, if you made a Border Skin theme, put it in the group, and please
specify what Border Skin version that works with the skin in the description.

Other
For More Border Skin Resources: borderskin.deviantart.com/

Bug Reports Here or by email mohamedkomalo@hotmail.com

VERY VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO Rahul Das RDTSOD for his amazing theme Sharp 2.1 which I am happy to include as the default theme for the 0.3, Sharp 2.1 can be download separately here: rdtsod.deviantart.com/art/Shar….

BorderSkin is now released under MIT License.

Daily Deviation

Given 2010-10-15

the suggester said: "eversince the release of windows' first Vista beta versions a lot has been tried to reproduce its transparency/blur effect in windows XP. there have been quite a few projects with just as many supporting believers. "Vystal" (hot air and nothing much to it), "Fast Aero" (abandoned by the original developer and only insufficiently supported since then), "True Transparency" (quite nice and stable and yet inferior in terms of blur effects).
..and then there is Border Skin - Aero Glass On XP by ~komalo, which finally manages to deliver what others have promised. it's like a dream come true and although it is meant to be used on a dying operating system (XP), it also works on Vista and Win7 to spice up the default theme a little."
( Suggested by PeterRollar and Featured by OtisBee )

wellingtonzirploid Featured By Owner Apr 14, 2017 Student Writer

It works but slows down my computer.

jaoliveros Featured By Owner Jan 8, 2016

When I try to install Border Skin I get the following error:

Exception Source    : System
Exception Type       : Win32Exception
Exception Message : El sistema no puede encontrar el archivo especificado
Exception Site         : StartWithShellExecuteEx

------------- : Stack Trace : -------------
   en System.Diagnostics.Process.StartWithShellExecuteEx(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)
   en System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)
   en WindowsHook.Impl.GlobalWindowsHookController.Start()
   en BorderSkin.Program.Main()

Alienwareowner Featured By Owner Jan 6, 2016

got this error on win7 sp1

Exception Source : BorderSkin
Exception Type : FileLoadException
Exception Message : Could not load file or assembly 'LayeredForms, Version=0.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. Access is denied.
Exception Site : GetSkinElement

------------- : Stack Trace : -------------
at BorderSkin.BorderSkinning.Skin.Ini.SkinIniLoader.GetSkinElement(String ID)
at BorderSkin.BorderSkinning.Skin.WindowBorderSkin..ctor(String skinName, String colorSchemeName)
at BorderSkin.Settings.Settings.Load()
at BorderSkin.Program.Main()

Alienwareowner Featured By Owner Jan 6, 2016

does this have a virus because my protection says its bad

rex-me1 Featured By Owner Nov 28, 2015

Would be nice if someone could link this in WindowFX 3.0 to make the look and feel of Aero more feelable. :3

ahkkhan Featured By Owner Sep 9, 2015

this error on Windows XP SP3 Help me

Exception Source : BorderSkin
Exception Type : TypeInitializationException
Exception Message : The type initializer for 'BorderSkin.Settings.Settings' threw an exception.
Exception Site : Load

------------- : Stack Trace : -------------
at BorderSkin.Settings.Settings.Load()
at BorderSkin.Program.Main()

This error was raised due to a programing bug.
BorderSkin will now close, all windows borders will be restored.You can help developing the application by reporting the information in"More Details" to the developer.

dsp2003 Featured By Owner Aug 17, 2015 Hobbyist General Artist

Gives me this error on Windows XP SP3:

Exception Source    : BorderSkin
Exception Type       : TypeInitializationException
Exception Message : The type initializer for 'BorderSkin.Settings.Settings' threw an exception.
Exception Site         : Load

------------- : Stack Trace : -------------
   at BorderSkin.Settings.Settings.Load()
   at BorderSkin.Program.Main()

napx-0 Featured By Owner May 22, 2015 Student Interface Designer

The Chinese Language File has been updated.
fav.me/d2skhlu

keep it up!

LinkFan16 Featured By Owner Mar 28, 2015 Hobbyist Photographer

I was really missing the Aero look after I got a new PC, which came with Windows 8.1. But thanks to BorderSkin, I got rid of the ugly default window border that Windows 8 introduced. I tried other tools before to get Aero back, but BorderSkin works best.

deusvacui Featured By Owner Mar 24, 2015 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Every time i open up Firefox it glitches the border for every windows with black lines.

s28.postimg.org/uctwcn2rx/bug.…

Xp SP3 Fully updated ,with the latest .NET framework and C++ Redistributable installed.

RDTSOD Featured By Owner Mar 29, 2015 Hobbyist Interface Designer

Does this happen only in firefox on in other apps as well?
If it happens only in firefox, you might want to add it to the exception list

deusvacui Featured By Owner Mar 31, 2015 Hobbyist Digital Artist

I added it to the exception list but it still skins the Firefox window.

1. First it borderskin would still try to assign a aero skin with no option to disable that.
2. I managed to disable skining of the Firefox window but the bug still appears even tho firefox is on the exclude list.

Firefox version is 36.0.1

It is probably a bug with XP SP3

Skrell Featured By Owner Feb 21, 2015

any chance you could do something to make BS more compatible with QTTabbar?

qttabbar.sourceforge.net/

Love to see the new release btw! YOU rule and thank you for supporting xp!

Skrell Featured By Owner Feb 22, 2015

Forgetting about QTTabbar for a minute, i'm experimenting more with Borderskin 0.3 and found 3 main issues in XPSP3:
1. The breadcrumb addressbar doesn't work if i click on any "subpath" to jump to that folder.
2. The search function doesn't seem to do anything.
3. task manager isn't skinned.

PM me if you have specific questions

AlanL9 Featured By Owner Feb 22, 2015

You can manually add taskmgr to include list, but Breadcrumbs doesn't work in my XP either.

komalo Featured By Owner Feb 21, 2015

I don't work with QTTabBar so will try to install it and see what is the conflict, but is there a special problem when running BorderSkin with QTTabBar ??

Thanks so much Skrell

PeterRollar Featured By Owner Feb 21, 2015 Hobbyist General Artist

Good to see you are updating BorderSkin. It is still one of my most beloved programs.The biggest problem to use it with Win7 and higer is that the fonts of the command bar always get messed up. They change the color and get almost unreadable.This is caused by the option to hide the explorer adress bar. Was already like this in previous versions. Maybe you can fix it.

komalo Featured By Owner Feb 21, 2015

Thanks so much for your support peter

, this is a problem due to the way BorderSkin removes windows border while aero is enabled. I am still searching for another way to remove the windows border without this effect, unfortunately the current fix is to disable aero I will add this to known issues.

link6155 Featured By Owner Feb 20, 2015 Hobbyist Interface Designer

Nice to see you still updating this

It looks like Borderskin isn't working with High DPI settings: sta.sh/0y35g4dayh5

komalo Featured By Owner Feb 21, 2015

Thanks, I am very happy with this release

.

I tried changing the DPI settings and it worked normally on win7, is this windows 8 or 10 tech preview ??

link6155 Featured By Owner Feb 22, 2015 Hobbyist Interface Designer

This is Windows 8.1.

I also tried this on Windows 10 and it works fine on normal dpi settings. However, it doesn't work very well with tablet mode or modern applications.

komalo Featured By Owner Feb 24, 2015

On Windows 8.1 with normal DPI, doest it work normally ?

I will try to run win8.1 from a virtual machine to see this problems.

thanks for the bug report btw

link6155 Featured By Owner Edited Feb 24, 2015 Hobbyist Interface Designer

It looks like BS works fine when it comes to the size of the window, but blur isn't working properly. I get an opaque grey background and whenever you have a window below it blurs it. Here's how it looks with blur on and off: sta.sh/21uycxkinb20

Not sure if this is helpful or not, but I'm running this on a Surface Pro 3

komalo Featured By Owner Feb 27, 2015

starting from win8, desktop window manager is enabled by default and can't be disabled and it used to have a conflict with BorderSkin, so to make it work with DWM normally I retrieve the image of each window separately and merge them together then blur it, I will look into the code of getting the desktop image

link6155 Featured By Owner Feb 28, 2015 Hobbyist Interface Designer

Also, disabling display scaling on high DPI makes the frame fit and resize around windows correctly, but it also makes everything look tiny on higher res screen.

NayNayliNay Featured By Owner Apr 29, 2014 Professional Photographer

Chris1847 Featured By Owner Apr 27, 2014

Why I Cant Chage My Aero Explorer For Windows Xp?

X7-GTAV Featured By Owner Mar 11, 2014 Student Artist

hey. you guys should try the Longhorn Visual Style with Longhorn Border Skin. they go great together

DeathNBasstep Featured By Owner Sep 25, 2013

Kudos

MenyaMenye Featured By Owner Aug 27, 2013

I tried to bring my win7 caption text to center alignment but it doesnt works properly

nggak Featured By Owner Jun 25, 2013 Student Photographer

Please ---> [link]

nggak Featured By Owner Jun 25, 2013 Student Photographer

QUICK REPLY, REALLY NEED HELP. SEE THIS PICTURE ----> [link]

Fibtastic Featured By Owner May 31, 2013

Great work!
I used Border Skin for many many years and it's a really good program, thank you for this!

Just wondering, are translations still requested? I can re-upload my German version if you like.

reker123 Featured By Owner May 18, 2013

error on windows7 x64

reker123 Featured By Owner May 18, 2013

I think it's try to load a 64bit dll while the main exe is 32bit

Exception Source : BorderSkin
Exception Type : BadImageFormatException
Exception Message : HRESULT:0x8007000B
Exception Site : StartWindowsHook

Hun73rDK Featured By Owner Apr 25, 2013

This error was raised due to a programing bug.
BorderSkin will now close, all windows borders will be restored.You can help developing the application by reporting the information in"More Details" to the developer.

Exception Source : BorderSkin
Exception Type : BadImageFormatException
Exception Message : An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007000B)
Exception Site : StartWindowsHook

------------- : Stack Trace : -------------
at BorderSkin.WindowsHook.StartWindowsHook(IntPtr WindowHandle)
at BorderSkin.Program.Main()

kashu200 Featured By Owner Mar 4, 2013

hi Komalo, I really appreciate you for making AERO glass theme for XP. Can you update borderskin and create taskbar transparency also in the new version

Deerfox Featured By Owner Jan 27, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thanks
+1

vitalisGDL Featured By Owner Nov 12, 2012

thx

zydrius32 Featured By Owner Oct 18, 2012

What about "Windows 8"

80063r Featured By Owner Aug 10, 2012

After installing SharpEnviro on XP, I get this error:

Exception Source : BorderSkin
Exception Type : FileNotFoundException
Exception Message : Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {9BA05972-F6A8-11CF-A442-00A0C90A8F39} failed due to the following error: 80070002.
Exception Site : Load

------------- : Stack Trace : -------------
at BorderSkin.ExplorerSkinningManager.Load()
at BorderSkin.Program.Main()

megazeldafan1000 Featured By Owner Aug 26, 2012

please tell me if you find a solution because we have the EXACT same error if you look down at my comment. I think the author has given up on the program

earl22online Featured By Owner Jul 31, 2012

Border Skin 0.2.9

Bug: Border Skin Error

Error:
This error was raised due to a programing bug.
BorderSkin will now close, all windows borders will be restored.You can help developing the application by reporting the information in"More Details" to the developer.

Error Details:
Exception Source : BorderSkin
Exception Type : NullReferenceException
Exception Message : Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Exception Site : NavigateDetect

------------- : Stack Trace : -------------
at BorderSkin.LayeredBreadCrumbs.NavigateDetect(Object sender, String Path)
at BorderSkin.SkinBox.NaviagteEventHandler.Invoke(Object sender, String Path)
at BorderSkin.SkinBox.OnButtonsClick(Object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
at BorderSkin.BoxButton.Parent_MOVE(Object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventHandler.Invoke(Object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnMouseClick(MouseEventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

earl22online Featured By Owner Jul 31, 2012

megazeldafan1000 Featured By Owner Jul 11, 2012

error:

Exception Source : BorderSkin
Exception Type : FileNotFoundException
Exception Message : Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {9BA05972-F6A8-11CF-A442-00A0C90A8F39} failed due to the following error: 80070002.
Exception Site : Load

------------- : Stack Trace : -------------
at BorderSkin.ExplorerSkinningManager.Load()
at BorderSkin.Program.Main()

cant really say anything good about this program untill it works

djeos546 Featured By Owner Jun 19, 2012

Err, is there a way to use this without .net framework ? I can't install it

(TT did without .net framework, why not you ?)

shalompanna Featured By Owner May 5, 2012

it doesn't work properly in win 7 32 bit

link6155 Featured By Owner Jun 10, 2012 Hobbyist Interface Designer

It was designed for XP

tristanart Featured By Owner Apr 15, 2012

I like the small memory usage (compared to TT), but I have some wishes for the future version:
1. Can you make the border thinner like in TT's Aero2?
2. Would you add more functional buttons to the explorer skin (folders, folder options, view options)?
3. I still have to use Styler (to hide explorer's menu), could you support the hiding in BS? And BS' explorer caption is too high.
4. Would you support transparency for the Taskbar and Start menu?

Anyway, it is a very good software!

Regards,
Al

biondini Featured By Owner Apr 25, 2012

@tristanart
Border Skin already has a feature to hide the Explorer menu.
It works in a slightly different way from Styler, so you have to make sure you place the Explorer menu above the Styler toolbar.