P.S. Incorrect search icon is displayed in the Start Menu --> Search Box...

P.P.S. By the way, the Start Menu scales on Windows 11 as it should (i. e. the height is correct) when using WindowBlinds11 with Start10...

And now the fun part!

At the beginning: ExplorerPatcher returns back the NATIVE LOOK of TASKBAR and TRAY AREA, and they begins to display correctly with the true fonts and colors from WB. An unpleasant but not fatal thing - the taskbar loses transparency...

1. The Show Desktop button disappears completely and the Expander overflow window loses its appearance after installing Start10 or Start11.

But if you uninstall Start10 / Start11 and leave ExplorerPatcher...

2. The "Show Desktop" button becomes visible and starts working correctly. As well as the Overflow window can be skinned again by WB.

By the way, all (any) left and right click menus in File Explorer are also skinned properly and looks like in Windows 7 with installed ExplorerPatcher.

Are you really sure that these parts are hard coded and cannot be skinned on Windows 11? This looks like a joke...

Basically ExplorerPatcher patches bits of the OS to make it use leftover code from Windows 10.

This is not a path we can go down as it is a support nightmare as it gets broken over and over again.

I understand. Ok... Let's forget Explorer Patcher. How about my first few questions directly about WindowBlinds - the height of Navigation Panel, missing Show Desktop button, the height of Start Menu and the problem with DWM render (the last seems is global...)?

First of all, good to see you back Vad! On Item #1, are you talking about the height of the image where the Libraries and Pictures text is? If so, that would require editing of the Search field background image making the image itself less tall. The paint margins would need adjusted also of course. Doing so though would mean you would most likely need to change the Search box height in the Extra Settings area of Bottom bar image of the start menu to your needs.

Thank you very much for your answer!

Yes. This part height is too high in Windows 11... In that skin the height of search field background .tga is 23px with 2px top/bottom margins. The Top Glass Area background image is only 5 x 5px... But the height of this area on the screenshot is 51px even after shrinking by Explorer Patcher... (By the way, I tried more than a dozen different skins from different authors with the same result.)

I think the problem is that the size of this area is reserved by System for Win 11 Ribbon, which is much bigger than Win 7 navigation panel. So the SKS11/WB11 should have a special setting that limits the height of this area.

What about displaying the Menu Bar in Windows 11 Explorer? Maybe you know how to do this?

And is there a way to adjust the height of the Start Menu? I can't figure out why these settings are ignored in Start11 but work in Start10...

I tried to do this in SKS11 by changing the "Height of part" parameter in the Extra settings. Nothing works...

As far as I know Vad, you can blame those areas on Microsoft, nothing you can do about it really.

This is sad news...

Maybe you're right. The only thing I can’t understand is why the height of the Start Menu is adjustable in Start10, but not in Start11. Tested both this morning on Windows 11 23H2.

This leads me to believe I should uninstall Start11 and continue using Start10. Very impressive... Seems I lost money...  

P.S. It would be great if Stardock added an option to Start XX like "Exclude the taskbar and leave it untouched." In this case we could use ExplorerPatcher and have the full skinned, true desktop (look at the screenshot in Reply #2 point 2 where the taskbar is skinned properly)...

Start 11 and explorerpatcher can work together as a combo.

You will have to leave the option "let start 11 enhance the taskbar" turned off in the settings. This is located under "Taskbar" in the start 11 settings menu.

After that you can in fact use explorer patcher as your taskbar enhancement and start 11 for your start menu. This has been a winning combo for a lot of people

Thank you!

I spent almost two days trying to understand what prevents WindowBlinds from displaying the taskbar correctly. Here are the results (look at my Reply #2):

1. ExplorerPatcher and WindowBlinds are fully compatible. If I run Windows without Start10/11 installed, the TaskBar, Tray Expander overflow window and Show Desktop button displays and works correctly. As well the clock font and font color are correct too. So I can see the native Windows 7 TaskBar.

2. If I run Windows with Start10/11 but without ExplorerPatcher, the Show Desktop button disappears, Tray Expander overflow window not skinned and the clock font becomes thin and white. Also TaskBar displays with wrong size and layout...

3. If I run Windows with Start11 and ExplorerPatcher, even with unchecked "let start 11 enhance the taskbar", the Show Desktop button is not visible and the Tray Expander overflow is not skinned.

I'll tell you more. Start11 displays the Windows 7 Start Menu with incorrect height that cannot be corrected. The "Show at last --> X shortcuts" option in the settings not working. But if I install Start10 on Windows 11 that option begin to work! I can't understand what's wrong with Stardock developers...  

Neil told:

I downloaded the ExplorerPacher c++ source code and looked at it. No hacks or patches inside! It does not change any system files. It just changes the layouts of some GUI elements and makes some of them visible. Nothing more...

I don't understand why Stardock names this "nightmare" and rejects so easy way to make their programs more useful and functional.

I think, the problems started when they decided to split WindowBlindsXX and StartXX. This is good for marketing but bad for us, end users. Now we are forced to look for OldNewExplorer, ExplorerPatcher or something else to have a full skinned desktop. Although all this adjustments could be implemented in one program - WindowBlinds - as it was in Windows 7...

Just thoughts...  

Good to see you back Vad_M.  Looking forward to more of your great skins.

I think you may have misunderstood the explorer patcher code.  It obtains the debug symbols for internal explorer functions and then patches them in memory.  These are non public internal functions liable to change.

This is why explorer patcher has been broken twice this year already.

It is also why it does not work if debug symbols for a given build are not released.

Start8/10/11 has never been split from WindowBlinds.  WindowBlinds skinned the start menu in Windows versions prior to Windows 8 but never provided the menu.

Me too!

Look at your screenshot. This is exactly what I was trying to say. Start Menu has the wrong height. As a result - the "Default Programs" item is half out of background bounds. TaskBar buttons not centered vertically. Tray Area Expander not skinned, Show Desktop not displayed and the clock font is thin and white, instead of the bold digital font that contains in .wba package, and a light blue color that just ignored...

I'm sorry, but I don’t see the point in making skins when there is no way to display them correctly. A half-skinned, ugly desktop is not my choice. So now I'm just programming something useful stuff for my PC.  

Wow! Thank you! I did not investigate it so deep.

But I'm sure there are other ways to show hidden parts of the Explorer GUI and change their layout / drawing method. Why? Because I'm doing the same thing in regular Visual Basic (.NET). But only for a current process windows, not for whole desktop. It's need to know C++ perfectly but I have not enough time for this. So all I can do is be sad...  

I use Explorer Patcher with unchecked (disabled) options "Enable symbols download". No any problems...

I did the final test. System: Windows 11 23H2 + WindowBlinds10 + Start10. Here the results:

1. Start Menu works and looks perfect. Even search icon displays like it should.

2. Unfortunately, GPU rendering has stopped working. I'm not a great guru, so I can't explain why this happens.

3. One more important thing is that Tray Area, Expander overflow menu and Show Desktop button began working and looking correct too.

Please explain to me why all this things cannot be fixed in WB11 if they works in WB10? Why Start Menu works fine if Start10 but has bugs in Start11?  

I don't understand...

So I'll have to use WB11 together with Start10 until the bugs will be fixed. At least the Start Menu will not annoy me...