Windows – “Aero glass does not know how to hook your version of dwm (0x8)”

aerowindows 10

I want to have the aero theme on my Windows 10 but this happens….

I downloaded this file:

enter image description here

then this appeared while installing:

enter image description here

I don't know what to do….

I'm running Windows 10 64-bit Version 1511 (OS Build 10586, 494)

Debug log: 

[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x978:0x980] Installing DWM hook...
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x978:0x980] User: SYSTEM
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x978:0x980] Module: C:\AeroGlass\DWMGlass.dll
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x12CC:0x1560] Donation key not loaded (2 - The system           cannot find the file specified.)
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x12CC:0x1560] Machine ID:    BRYGOJLIAPPQULUI6KCQL624BLRLW2ZK6YLQTYVQRLVECBIQ
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x12CC:0x1560] Hook (USER32.dll!DrawTextW from udwm.dll) installed
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x12CC:0x1560] Hook (GDI32.dll!CreateBitmap from udwm.dll) installed
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x12CC:0x1560] Hook (GDI32.dll!CreateRoundRectRgn from udwm.dll) installed
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x12CC:0x1560] Aero Glass for Win8.1+ 1.4.5.520 x64 correctly loaded (C:\AeroGlass\DWMGlass.dll).
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x12CC:0x1538] DBGHELP: Symbol Search Path: .;C:\AeroGlass\symbols
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x12CC:0x1538] Loading settings (flags = 0x3) from HKEY 0x0000000000000404 for session #1
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x12CC:0x1538] dwmcore.dll version 10.0.10586.494
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x12CC:0x1538] udwm.dll version 10.0.10586.494
[2016-07-17 10:39:47][0x12CC:0x1538] DWM incompatibility error 0x8

Best Answer

Ok, you don't use Glass8 with a donation.key, so the tool doesn't automatically download the debug symbols (PDB) for all DWM related DLLs when the tool itself doesn't have a hardcoded patching pattern for a specific DLL version.

What are the DWM symbols and where to get them?/ I see "Your DWM is incompatible" message. What to do?

Aero Glass for Win8.x+ works by injecting re-implemented code into several DWM functions. This can be achieved only when the absolute location of each function is known. These locations are described in special files called "program database" and you can recognize them by their .PDB extension. They contain set of all public DWM variables and functions (which are called symbols) together with their memory offsets (relative locations) and other information. Aero Glass for Win8.x+ is able to load these files from "symbols" directory stored in your Aero Glass installation directory, find appropriate symbol and compute absolute memory location.

Since Aero Glass for Win8.x knows how each DWM function should look like, it is able to find them without the need of the program databases. Thus, in normal situation, user should not bother about it at all. However, in some rare situations (e.g. some Windows update changes the look of the function), it may happen that known symbol is not found and the only possibility is to load its location from the external program database. The best practice to know more and to get symbol files is reading Microsoft's documentation (you will need symbol files for dwmcore.dll and udwm.dll). The most important thing is that the version of the program database must correspond to the used DWM library version.

So you have to manually download the PDBs for dwmcore.dll and udwm.dll with symchk.exe which is part of the Windows SDK or via the tool called PDB Downloader.

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