I've added a function to WSB that will help automate the process of overriding UIFILE resources with ONE. It'll automatically embed the resources into the Shellstyle for you.

Nice work mate, will have a play with it later 

You can not test a Windows 8 theme nor import a windows 7 theme if you using WSB on Windows 7, you need to be running WSB on Windows 8

This app is a must for any themer on windows 8, the possibilities are endless, having UI files loaded from the themes shellstyle gives you total freedom without the fear of breaking the fragile Windows 8 system files, each theme can have it's own unique set of UI files to make the theme behave in the way it was intended, this is something we need as well as the Resource Spy update so we can load icons and images as well with the themes, we will pretty much have a full theme system then, this tool can also customize the metro UI and he also made a tool that converts Binary UI files to xml that I have tried and he told me is tool powerful at the moment and needs to tame it a bit lol

Have you tried any other dark themes to see if the problem is still there, maybe it's time to restore all system files and start fresh, you could try running sfc /scannow to restore any modified system files, then patch your system again and try a few themes to see if the problem still exists, failing that you could try a repair install, this will load fresh files and also restore all services and registry entries to default, this method will also keep all your files and programs unlike a clean install, if that doesn't fix it then the final option may be a clean install, I had a friend on my site that had a problem just like this, he kept on having the text in explorer turning black when using dark themes, at first he thought it was my themes causing the problem, in the end he gave up and did a fresh install and it was fine after that.

It's not a very common problem, I can go ages without seeing it so not sure if it will help at all but here is one of the themes I was working on when it happened last http://www.mediafire.com/download/txrsiadatn1ox35/Poison.zip

Yeah that's what has happened to me as well, I think both crashes are related though.

I found a few error logs but not sure if they are related, I think they may be from another problem when opening a new theme, sometimes after opening a new theme when you first hit test WSB crashes.

Yep that's exactly what i have seen as well

Yeah I have had this as well, he means the application not explorer, the interface seems to loose functionality some times, it's a strange slow crash and leaves you having to kill the task in Task manager, it completely locks up and you need to grab the last saved msstyles from the test folder, sorry I should have reported this earlier, not sure why I haven't as it's a pretty major bug.

Deleting multiple properties like that will be a bit slow, but if you search StartPanelPriv it'll show you StartPanelPriv and StartPanelComposited::StartPanelPriv and you can select all and delete. Ctrl + A doesn't work with the grid so you'll have to hold shift then click the first and the last property to select all. Make sure you don't delete any inherited properties if there are any.

Well I just learned something new, I never thought it was possible to delete multiple properties, I would have thought using a selection box to highlight all the properties would give you the same result, but it seems only the way you described works by selecting the first property and holding shift then selecting the last one to select all, it would be even better if we were able to use the delete key as well.

This will be fixed with Aero Glass by Big Muscle, I am using the beta for it now and it removes that background in the title text.

For me the start menu search text changes color from Address, Breadcrumb, & Search > Search > Edit > SearchEdit > TextBox > Normal Text same it does on Windows 7

To change Font go to Fonts, Colors, & System Metrics > Fonts & System Metrics > IconTitleFont you need to hit test a couple of times for it to change, again, same as it is in Windows 7

I've done that, but the side and top shadows do not meet correctly.

Any idea why they would not blend correctly?

Make sure the the shadow image on the top has the same width from the edge of the frame as your side shadow images, otherwise they will not align, hope you understand what I mean.

By the looks of it you have to much of a gap, too much width from the edge of your top shadow image, either reduce the space on the edges of your top image or increase the width of your side shadow images.

Thanks for the tip mate, wondered where that image was

You can edit the shellstyle.dll and make it use another property, I did it on my theme, thought it was stupid that it was using the menu resource there.

You could always make a fake one I guess, make it part of the normal taskbar image.

Not a huge fan of the original series but looks like you have put a huge amount of work in this and it looks great.

After having more of a play with this I found a way to stop the problems I was having in the jump list by using another program called System Transparency, I used the manual way of using Aero8Tuner then starting Blend and then starting System Transparency and here is the result with and without using System Transparency.

I included System Transparency for anyone who wants to try it, just make sure you set the opacity to 254 only.

Cool, gave it a try and works pretty good on my Equinox theme, my frames are 85% opacity so it works well, I did notice in the jumplist pull up the taskbar there are still some issues though, but a good step in the right direction, I also tried using it with Black glass enhanced and it also allowed full transparent explorer windows but without having the ability to set the amount of transparency it made it very unusable.

So has anyone else experienced this yet or have any work around for it?

Looks to me like you are using a Vista OS or you are using WSB with Vista compatibility mode turned on.

Yeah I tried that but they do not get saved and I also tried importing the metrics from a Windows 7 theme file and it didn't have any effect on it.

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this but I found when changing metrics such as caption button sizes and borders that it will change fine when testing but not when applying from the personalization menu, it seems that whatever size was last tested in WSB is stuck for all themes changed in the personalization menu, is this something to do with metrics being removed from the advanced options in personalization in Windows 8 that can now only be forced using WSB or is there another way new metrics can be forced now when changing to a new theme in personalization?

Okay, thanks.  They actually have an image, it is 21 x 27 pixels, the same as the other states under Top, but the image is simply a black rectangle.  So, a maximized Aero window title bar cannot have an image, texture, etc., but simply a colour?

Speaking of glow, how to eliminate the glow around the text of the window title?

To remove the glow on the title text adjust Windows and Caption Buttons > Aero > DWM Window > Frames > Window > Top > Active > Opacity:Int to 0, also adjust for the other window states.

Or you can make Windows and Caption Buttons > Aero > DWM Window > Frames > Details > Glows > Text a blank image.

Most likely Stardock has hard coded the fonts for the Start menu, if you want a start menu that you can customize as you did with windows 7 then use StartIsBack

Put it in a zip and it will

post your msstyles and we will take a look and then see what the problem is lol

when you set your sizing margin did you set it at least 1 pixel less then the width of the image, if you don't it will still stretch the whole image, you also need to have canvas width 1 pixel larger then the image on the out site for the frames as those are not shown on the outer edge.

As Panda said and also the rounded corners on some of those are hard coded

This is my latest theme based on the default style but with a new start menu to match as well as a new supported user picture frame that you can change with StartIsBack.

Yeah not sure what he means exactly but I think he may be making custom themes useable without needing to patch any files, will just have to wait to see what the go is with that one.

Great work on the port by the way, if we ever do get transparency back in the frames it will be perfect.

Hi I just wanted to start a thread to list unknown locations and what they are used for.

Explorer & Shell > Explorer > Items View > ItemsView > <6> > <1> ?

I think this looks like the real thing, I had a feeling this would be possible after seeing the work on StartIsBack and how he was able to disable and enable the transparency on the start menu and taskbar.

off topic I have been talking to the creator of SIB and his next version will also include being able to have a custom Userpicture frame and native support for changing the start menu theme using the msstyles.

This will depend on what your using to bring back the start menu, if your using Start8 then the usual way will not work as it is not using the native user picture frame, if your using startIsBack it will work though.

I did this as well using a hex editor and then found an easier way editing the UI file in plain text from the previous Windows 8 build

All you need to do is add UserPicture:Bool to Start Menu > Panels > Aero > Bottom > UserPane and make sure it's unchecked, do the same for Start Menu > Panels > Basic > Places List > Panels > User Pane and then adjust the DefaultPanelSize:Rect to 0, 0, 145, 0

Nice work mate, don't forget you can also change the default panel size for each image, you can either change the one in basic or add new ones to aero, that way you do not have to sacrifice your design to fit the default start menu size

Thanks Jamie

Have you tried this with any other theme or is it only happening on your theme?

Here is my latest theme that I ported to Windows 8, you can download it from my site here http://virtualcustoms.net/showthread.php/47795-Equinox-Beta-1

Here is what happens when using Truesize instead of tile, see how the left side of the image is removed.