The following steps will reproduce the problem: 1. Install vwKvasdoPager as per instructions. 2. Run "install-dll.bat" in a command shell as administrator(See issue 10). 3. Restart VirtuaWin.

I expected the pager to be visible in the taskbar as in Windows XP, but this did not happen.

I'm using Windows 7 64-bit home premium and version v0.4.3a of vwKvasdoPager.

I can confirm the same happens on Windows 7 64-bit ultimate. Any chance of getting this fixed? VirtuaWin doesn't feel the same without this plugin :)..

I've managed to recompile vwKvasdoPager using VC10 at Windows 7 Ultimate x64 - so far, it works fine. Attaching x64 binaries.

I tried your updated binaries on a brand new (as of yesterday) installation of Windows 7 Pro x64 and was unable to register the DLL file with regsvr32. It failed with the error:

"The specified module cannot be found"

After trying various different paths, making sure my command prompt was elevated to administrator, and that the dll was in fact readable by all users, it dawned on me that regsvr32 WASN'T complaining about being about to find vwKvasdoPagerBand.dll, but rather some dependency of it. Rather than go dependency hunting in an unfamiliar Windows 7 environment, I went with a hunch and downloaded and installed Visual Studio 10 RC4. 2 hours and 8 GB later, I re-ran the regsvr32 command and vwKvasdoPagerBand.dll magically installed!

However, upon loading the pager onto the Win7 toolbar, there was still a glaring issue: None of the windows in the previews have their associated icons; they just look like white boxes. See attached screenshot.

I also tried the recompiled version for Windows 7 Ultimate x64, extracted the .exe and .dll files and copied them into my modules directory (with the same install-dll.bat file from before). And it failed with the same error as reported above: "This module "vwKvasdoPagerBand.dll" failed to load. Make sure the binary is stored at the specified path or debug it to check for problems with the binary or dependent .DLL files. The specified module could not be found."

Any suggestions are appreciated!

I am also waiting for a fix for this (have w7 professional 64bit). I have to admit I find myself lost without this pager. Even if some of the features are missing I'd take this pager over the others. Thanks for building it!

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The DLL has a dependency on vc10 64-bit ATL. Install the x64 vc10 runtime package from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=bd512d9e-43c8-4655-81bf-9350143d5867

To fix the missing icons bug just use the vwKvasdoPager.exe file from the main distribution. Only the shell extension part (i.e. vwKvasdoPagerBand.dll) has to be 64-bit.

So I used the 64-bit DLL with the EXE from the main distribution in Win7 x64, but it isn't working properly for me. When selecting KvasdoPager from the toolbar menu, it warns me that the program was not designed for my version of Windows and will not display properly. So I select the option for it to run anyway, and all I get is a blank, white toolbar that can be resized. As far as I can tell, my desktops aren't being represented visually, and it's just a hideous white bar.

Is there any fix for this?

PS - I installed the x64 VC10 runtime package.

@scoularis The bar has some issues on Windows 7 but it should nonetheless display more than just a white rectangle.

Make sure VirtualWin is running and check if vwKvasdoPager is listed in the Modules tab of the setup dialog.

A major issue on Windows 7 is that the icons of explorer windows are not displayed. This is related to issue 16.

Okay, here's a picture of what it looks like for me. As you can see, some icons show, some don't. That doesn't really bother me too much. If you look to the right of the last desktop, you can see the white that extends infinitely if you resize the toolbar.

Now, I realize that I can resize the toolbar until that white is gone, but my main beef is with the colors in general with Windows 7. In XP, the desktops in the pager look distinct from one another and the boxes (both inactive and active) are dark enough to look set apart from XP's taskbar. In Windows 7, the pager has an ugly white border around each box, and the inactive boxes are so lightly colored that they look nearly white. Also, another nitpick is that the ugly white border overlaps the top of the taskbar, which looks strange.

Is there anything that can or will be done in the future to make KvasdoPager look normal in Windows 7?

How do you build a 64bit version of the deskband? When I try to compile in VS 2003, 2005 & 2008 (don't have 2010) I get the error:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\atlmfc\include\atlcom.h(2979) : error C2247: 'IUnknown' not accessible because 'CDeskBand' uses 'private' to inherit from 'IObjectWithSite'

Which makes no sense to me, can someone enlighten me or attach a fixed project?

Thanks.

@bjasspa Here's a source patch and vc10 project file I used to produce an x64 build.

Note that I'm not the one who posted the vwKvasdoPager.rar build above.

alexandr - thanks for your help, I have now got it building.

If anyone is interested I now have a VC2005 project which can build both 32 & 64 bit versions.

I have created an experimental version which supports a themed taskbar, please try the version attached, the zip file contains both a 32 & 64 bit version of the dll, the screen shot shows how this looks on my desktop.

Please only use this version if you are on XP, Vista or Win7 and have themes enabled, if have not added any smarts to handle non themed setups, nor have I tested the 32 bit version at all(!) and only tried the 64bit version on Win7.... So if you can't handle Explorer potentially crashing please avoid, this is only experimental.

The pager still looks a little washed out but believe this is due to some semi-transparent drawing issue which I've not looked at yet.

I recommend that everyone try out bjasspa experimental version. It looks MUCH better with Windows 7 than the default release.

I've submitted a patch for removing the "toolbar isn't compatible with this version of Windows" message that appear on Windows 7. Issue 21.

@bjasspa - Looks very nice. I hope you'll post your sources when you're done.

I will post the fix once I'm happy with it, the attached version is less of a bodge, it detects whether themes are being used and does the right thing (for me anyway), I've also tested this on XP so should be fairly safe for anyone to try.

This version also has an improvement to the icons, its more successful in obtaining an icon and I've change the size limit so it still draws an icon if greater than 14 pixels rather that 16.

I have not moved this over to IDeskBand2 yet, that will be next. Alexandr - thanks for your help on this issue...

@bjasspa - That sounds very interesting.

I'd like to know more about your strategy for accurately obtaining the icon of a window. I'm also working on the issue (see issue 16) and wondering if our approach is similar.

The approach I'm experimenting with currently consists of these steps in-order: 1 - Send a WM_GETICON message to the windows (using SendMessageCallback to avoid blocking the thread) 2 - Use GetClassLong() on the window handle 3 - Extract the icon from the executable

I'm using WM_GETICON first because some windows only reveal theirs actual icon this way. For instance with a Control Panel window you get the default Windows Explorer icon through GetClassLong() but the proper Control Panel icon using WM_GETICON.

It seems that most Java application also don't have a windows class icon but disclose their actual icons in response to a WM_GETICON message.

I also attempt to specifically request the small icon (16x16) first because scaled down large icons (32x32) tend to look rather ugly. See the Command Prompt icon for instance. The released version always use large icons if memory serves.

I'm seeing a strange drawing issue running your build on Windows XP x64 with the classic theme. It's apparently due to the black border you're drawing around the bar.

Attaching screen shot.

Above issue appear when you resize the bar to make it wider.

alexandr

The process I've used is identical to that in ViruaWin, so download VirtuaWin.c and look for WM_GETICON, VW uses GetClassLong first then WM_GETICON with ICON_SMALL and then WM_GETICON with ICON_BIG. It does not try to extract it from the executable (what would the performance be like?).

I gather from your screenshot you have only 3 desktops? I have seen this odd black boarder drawing issue (I simply draw the window with the COLOR_3DFACE color so I'm not sure why there's a black border, perhaps something to do with the window's flags?), I was thinking of making the window effectively invisible if the module was not running but would that be more confusing???

Hi! Tested on Windows 7 (x64)! Is working well, only oriz/vert though not 2x2 missed the bottom 2 drawing. Latest 4.2 build of VirtuaWin.

@bjasspa - I don't know if you have looked into the "washed out look" on Aero Glass issue yet.... I think I have a working solution.

We have to... - Create a bitmap buffer using BeginBufferedPaint() instead of CreateCompatibleBitmap() - Draw the contents into the provided DC - Use BufferedPaintSetAlpha() to set the transparency level - Call EndBufferedPaint() instead of BitBlt() when we're done

Attaching three screenshots. 1st screenshot fully transparent 2nd screenshot fully opaque 3rd screenshot semitransparent (200 out of 255)

Attaching a patch for the "semitransparent " version. Not tested much.

We have to add code for checking if themes and/or Aero Glass are enabled but I think you've looked into that already.

Keep up the good work!

Ooh, nice work alexandre. Thanks to you and bjasspa, KvasdoPager seems like it's shaping up to be awesome in Windows 7 after a couple more iterations. The washed out colors/transparency issue is the highest priority fix, and it seems like you're well on your way to completely resolving that issue.

I will be around to test new releases of the pager as they come out. It's all I can offer, since my computer science experience is too limited to offer any help beyond testing.

Alexandre - it looks like you have cracked the big one, I'm happy to leave that one for you.

I'm currently looking at the XP drawing issue you raised in comment 21 above and try to stop the pager disappearing when resizing the band in the taskbar.

I am currently using VC2005 to compile (earliest version with x64 & v7 SDK support etc), do we rename the VC project files to deskband_8.* so _10.* files can be used in parallel? (What a mess, I much prefer makefiles!)

And how are we to manage a merge? Really these fixes should be fed back individually into the repository, but I think its a bit to late for that now. Does one of us post their version for the other to merge or do we post our fixes back to Kvasdopil to merge and commit into the repository?

It looks like you might be able to use alexandre's semitransparent patch on the source that you have been working on, no? It looks like he just tweaked and added a few lines of code to achieve the proper rendering. I definitely think that your current build should be used as the base.

Sorry I missed the patch attachment - will merge it into mine and make available as soon as I can.

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As for "merging our changes" my personal preference would be to post a single patch here with everything pertaining to "x64 support" and "modern Windows look&feel". That goes beyond the initial issue description but since most of the discussion ended-up here I guess it may still be alright ;-)

We should document the changes once we're done and email Kvasdopil.

I suppose we can also break it in two (one patch for 64-bit / one patch for look&feel) but I would only do so if the changes clearly don't overlap.

It makes sense that Issue 21 will be closed by that one.

I may still have a few things to say regarding the icons. If that involves a lot of changes that may go in Issue 21 but I'm still not sure about that (have to read the VirtualWin icon code first).

I also have an unrelated patch waiting in Issue 7. It probably shouldn't be merged with the rest.

Now regarding the project files...

If you prefer Makefiles perhaps we can contribute one for Microsoft nmake. I see a few OSS projects doing so and it's AFAICT the easiest way to build something across all releases of the Microsoft compiler...

Another option would be to provide only a project file for the oldest compiler supported vc2005 (8.0) in our case and just ensure that it goes painlessly through the migration wizard in newer versions.

Which makes me think... Our patch will brake compatibility with vc2002 (7.0) which is the version used by the project files on SVN.

I guess we can still support it but is it worth the trouble?

Deleted comment 30 above. Sorry. Let me restate...

Regarding the transparency patch.

That patch might need a bit more work though. I think the functions used are only available on Vista and 7 (we may have to use LoadLibrary/GetProcAddress for this). They also probably shouldn't be called when themes are disabled (have to confirm this)...

@bjasspa - I can look into these details if you're working on something else. Please reply if you plan on doing it yourself so as to avoid duplicate efforts.

Thanks

@bjasspa I think I found out why the pager is disappearing when you move it sometimes.

When you drag the band up or down it appears to snap on another "row" of the task bar but since it has a minimum height of 0 you just can't move it anymore.

If you enable a second toolbar and drag both bars on the same "row" (above or bellow the the application icons) that second toolbar cause the "row" to have a minimum height and you can see both bars.

If CDeskBand::GetBandInfo() set pbdi->ptMinSize.y to 15 the problem disappear.

That's my understanding of the issue anyways..

Hope that helps.

I have already made this change and added support for turning the pager 'toolbar' into a floating one, i.e. drag it off the taskbar to create its own window, this allows me to create a massive pager window - pretty good really but not available in Win7.

However explorer crashes if you then try to drag the floating toolbar back onto the taskbar, I think this is the crash that I have seen before but with the add support for a floating toolbar it is much easier to reproduce. Hopefully someone can help me fix that one once I've merged everything else in.

Nice. I noticed you could drag it out before but it didn' work at all.

I can't wait to try out the next revision of the pager. Any estimate on when I will get to test it out?

I have Alexandre's fix up and running and the Pager is back to what it should be! Thanks Alexandre.

The functions used are not available in XP so I am currently fixing this so one version will work on all OSs. This should not take long but England v Germany does take priority! :-)

Oh, man. I wanna try out the new pager! Thanks to both of you for the work you've put into updating the pager.

bjasspa, will you be making a news post on the VirtuaWin site when the new pager is fully ready? I think a lot of Windows 7 users will be happy to know that KvasdoPager has been enhanced for their OS.

Quick question: will the patches and updates you've made to the pager allow it to automatically reposition itself when new system tray icons are added? KvasdoPager, in its current state, gets overlapped by the new icons rather than moving to the left in order to accomodate them.

If not, that's fine. I was just wondering.

@scoularis The problem you refer too is Issue 19.

Attached is the latest version, this should have all my fixes and Alexandre's Win7 IDeskBand2 & transparency fixes - should work on all OSs, themed or not, glass effect or not! Enjoy.

Still no sources though :(

No problem with it so far. Looks much better on 7.

I'm currently trying to get the source committed back so everyone can update to the latest.

However, one issue I have noticed is now easy to reproduce on XP, simply unlock the taskbar and drag the pager onto the desktop, this makes the pager 'float', i.e. creates a separate toolbar window for it which allows you to create any size pager you want. Now try dragging it back onto the taskbar - this crashes Explorer! (the crash can be avoided by simply closing the toolbar window).

Other toolbars support being dragged off and on the taskbar so I believe there is something wrong with the Pager's band implementation (i.e. in the dll), explorer crashes with a function in browserui.dll calling a function at address '0x000000' which is clearly broken, there's no reference to vwKvasdoPager in the stack, so has the 'NULL' function come from a bad function reference in the pager's dll?

Anyone got any ideas on how to track this issue down? It would be good to fix this one.

That was happening before your changes.

Would it be possible to get your code checked-in and fill a separate issue. That one is getting really long and it's hard to keep track of.

Whoa! Great job guys! Didn't expect to have so much feedback on my project.

My laptop was dying last night (and I left my power cord at my girlfriend's house), so I only got to try out the new version of the pager for a minute or two.

And I have to say that it looks great now in Windows 7 x64. No more compatibility warning message, the colors look right, and it just feels less glitchy overall. I will put it through more thorough testing later tonight once I get home.

Great work, bjasspa and alexandre.

Attached is the source code for all my changes plus some of Alexandre's fixes, I have also submitted these to Kvasdopil so hopefully they will get into the main source tree soon.

(Note I have not included the deskband.ncb file as I do not believe this is needed and is massive)

Thanks bjasspa.

I just opened Issue 26 for the floating toolbar crash you noted. I guess I'll be looking into that next. It's strange but I also get a crash when closing the toolbar , not only when I drag it back.

--

The .ncb file is an identifier database for code auto-completion (intellisense). VC++ will rebuild it automatically when you open the project so you don't have to distribute it.

Good catch on the use of SetWindowLongPtr() vs SetWindowLong() for storing a 64-bit pointer in atlshell.h

I'm amazed my explorer.exe didn't crash more often.

I have one tiny nitpick-ish remark though...

I think you can lose the #ifdef and just call SetWindowLongPtr() in both the 32-bit and 64-bit build. In fact SetWindowLongPtr is just a #define for SetWindowLong on 32-bit windows.

The only use I can see for an "#ifdef WIN64" here is to cope with the absence of 64-bit windows header files.

Your suggestion makes sense, I added the WIN64 define just for this one purpose so simplifying would be good.

You have submitted a lot of fixes, it would be good to get them all merged into a good solid version. I have a few further things I would like to add once that is done, one is a config dialog to set the margins (as discussed in VW thread) the other is getting the pager to run without the deskband (a portable version of VW could not use this pager in its current form, but if the exe could be configured to simply create a wrapper window (bit like the floating toolbar window) then it should still work and with only a small amount of work - the pager could then add a hook into the VW control menu in case the user closes the window (like the new VWPreview module))

Yes. Would be nice to see some fixes merged-in to simplify development.

An alternative to your portable version is to register the deskband DLL in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes. That doesn't require admin privileges and works since win2k I believe. I guess the deskband could even be registered automatically when the VirtuaWin module is loaded.

We could also replace the existing install.bat by a better script that detects if you need the 64-bit DLL and displays an UAC prompt when needed.

In addition to configurable margins I'd like the pager to look better when the taskbar in pinned on the side of the screen or at the top. I'm also looking into the possibility of giving the toolbar a fixed width (see Issue 19).

I'd also like to see some of the code cleaned up eventually (e.g. do we really need sample.cpp) but I suppose it's something kvasdopil can do later on.

I'll post an updated build and source tree with all the patches applied.

New build and source files including all the changes bellow:

All of bjasspa fixes: copied over win7_fixes.zip from Issue 13 [should fix Issue 2, Issue 10, Issue 16, Issue 20 and Issue 21]

Mousewheel to switch desktops: applied vwkvasdopager-issue1-3.patch from Issue 1 added mouseHook.h to the msvc project (using a text editor since I don't have vs2005)

Multiple monitor support: applied vwkvasdopager-multimon-3.patch from Issue 7 [based on Doug Larrick's patch]

GDI Objects leak in tooltip code: applied vwkvasdopager-tooltip_gdi_leak-2.patch from Issue 23

Strange behavior when dragging a window outside the pager applied vwkvasdopager-issue24-3.patch from Issue 24

Crash when dismissing the floating toolbar applied vwkvasdopager-issue26-2.patch from Issue 26

Removed files that I think shouldn't be distributed deskband\ deskband.aps (ressource editor by-product) deskband.dsp (msvc6 project untested) deskband.dsw (msvc6 workspace untested) deskband.ncb (intellisense database) deskbandps.def (unused .def file) deskbandps.mk (old makefile untested)

I didn't review bjasspa changes in details but my patches appear to work as intended. (Tested on XP SP3 32-bit and Windows 7 64-bit)

@kvasdopil - Please don't hesitate to ask if you need help or have any questions or comments on the code.

Thanks for merging all your other fixes, I like the wheel mouse desktop changing - very nice.

I should be able to help with the taskbar location (top, left or right) issue as I had to fix similar issues in VirtuaWin (I was a bit lazy when implementing my fix, the addition of the config dialog would be a good time to fix it properly).

Not convinced about using HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes route for a portable version as shutting down would not be reliable. Explorer keeps the dll loaded for quite a time after removing the toolbar so how do I safely remove my memory stick?

On that subject how do you get Explorer to release the dll quickly (useful when developing)? On XP I tend to kill the Explorer process, but if you do that in Win7 you create all sorts of subtle permission issues so I tend to sit on my hands for half an hour......

Just installed the version with all of the consolidated packages, and I like the mouse wheel switching a lot. I didn't even know that had been implemented. Awesome work, the both of you.

bjasspa, you've mentioned that the delay in the pager reflecting desktop changing is due to a delay built into VirtuaWin for reporting changes to modules. Is there anywhere in a config file somewhere that I could edit this delay value? You've said that you don't mind the delay that the pager exhibits, but it's hard for me to ignore. When I switch desktops, I want the pager to reflect it instantly.

bjasspa, I have an ugly patch that will unload the DLL immediately when the toolbar is removed.

Only works on 64-bit for now. It appears to work on XP x64 and Windows 7 x64.

I guess it can help you develop a bit faster.

Hopefully I've just missed the simple and easy way to do this ;-)

Alexandre, what a hack - I'm not sure I want to know where that came from but inspired and a lot better than having to kill Explorer so invaluable aid to development.

I think this should be added to the code but surrounded by '#ifdef DEBUG' so it has no effect on a release build.

Scoularis - There is no deliberate delay, but the desktop change process of VirtuaWin is to sort out the windows first, i.e. hide windows on hte old desktop and show windows on new desktop, and then inform modules that the desktop has been changed, so the modules will always be last to find out.

Given you and I are both using the same version of VirtuaWin and the pager yet only you have a sizeable delay, it suggests that something is delaying the update process. The only explanation I can think of is either a window is particularly show to respond or another module is causing the delay, but either should effect the speed of successive changes (can you try changing desktops 3, 4+ times is there a delay? I can change desktops at around 3 or 4 times a second and everything keeps up including the pager).

If there is a delay can you enable VirtuaWin event logging (Setup -> Expert tab) and send me a log of after doing the above, it should help identify the area.

BTW I believe you use Digsby, have you hit a problem with a hidden window becoming visible (see VW bug 3026574)? If not I wonder why not?

@bjasspa - Something that may cause additional delay in the vwKvasdopager module is your use of SendMessageTimeout()for both ICON_SMALL and ICON_BIG.

I think that could slow things down a bit if a few windows are slow to respond.

The delay occurs on both my XP SP3 work computer and my Windows 7 x64 home computer, and it occurs even when I have no windows open whatsoever.

It's slight, but noticeable to me when switching desktops quickly. I would say that there is a good half-second delay PER desktop switch. So when switching more than one desktop in quick succession (for example, switching to the right twice to go from Desktop 1 to Desktop 3 in a 3x1 config), the pager's highlighted desktop will just jump from 1 to 3 with a slight delay rather than instantly reflecting the change from 1 to 2 to 3.

If that isn't clear, I can try rewording my description.

Issue 20 has been merged into this issue.

all available patches are applied now great thanks to bjasspa and alexandre

i think we need to create another issue regarding dll unload and delay problem so i can close this issue

I am trying to use KvasdoPager v0.5.1a on Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. "regsvr32 vwKvasdoPagerBandx64.dll" command fails with the following error message: "The module "vwKvasdoPagerBandx64.dll" was loaded but the call to DllRegisterServer failed with error code 0x80040201."

Installed vcredist_x64.exe from the link above, but it didn't help. Tried vwKvasdoPagerBand_64.dll from the packages attached in the comments here - no luck.

Any advice?

In response to Comment 67

Try downloading a release from the download section this issue is old and as far as i know all changes are now merged into the official release.

On Windows 7 you may have to register the DLL as Administrator. Open another issue if that doesn't work.

In response to Comment 67

You should run bat with "Run as Administrator in context menu."

Also I found next issue for last version (Windows 7, x64):

If you run install-dll.bat from 32bit file manager (for example FreeCommander) then script get PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE=x86 and it register 32bit library vwKvasdoPagerBandWin32 instead of vwKvasdoPagerBandx64.

WA: 1. Edit install-dll.bat and leave next lines @echo off regsvr32 "%~dp0\vwKvasdoPagerBandx64.dll"

2. Edit uninstall-dll.bat and leave next lines @echo off regsvr32 /u "%~dp0\vwKvasdoPagerBandwin32.dll" regsvr32 /u "%~dp0\vwKvasdoPagerBandx64.dll"

3. Uninstall previously registered dlls by run: uninstall-dll.bat

4. Register 64bit dll by run: install-dll.bat

This workaround sucessfully works for me.

Please, any chance to make this work in Windows 8 64 bits?

thanks