Jan 28 2013

I Am A Fucken Windows 8 Geeeeenius!!!!!!!!!

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I dicked around on Google searching for how to change the default UI fonts and other appearances of Windows 8, and I figured it out! I went into a Windows 7 machine with a screen of indentical size and resolution and set everything set exactly how I wanted it, and then I exported the registry key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics]. This contains all of the settings of things like desktop icon and font size, program menu font size, title bar font, etc. (No fucken idea why all this shit is encoded in fucked uppe weird lists of hexadecimal numbers, instead of just normal text.) Then you can import this registry key into your Windows 8 machine, and VIOLIN!!

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12 comments

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1

Comradde PhysioProffe

January 28, 2013 at 9:25 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

Oh, and this is also very cool: With the previous registry settings, the taskbar icons were too big and the taskbar was too thick, even with the regular UI setting on “Use small taskbar buttons”. I’m not exactly sure which registry entry controls this, but now the taskbar is nice and thin, with smaller buttons and not so much wasted extra space around them.
2

slc1

January 28, 2013 at 9:54 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

Gee, in the MAC operating system (at least 10.6), the size of the items on the Dock are settable from the fuckken System Preferences menu.
3

slc1

January 28, 2013 at 10:00 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

By the way, I hope the fuckken Yankee fan remembered to save a copy of the fuckken Windows Registry before diddling with it. One of the most dangerous occupations one can engage in is diddling with the fuckken Windows Registry.
4

starskeptic

January 28, 2013 at 10:57 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

So all I need to do now is hunt down a Win 7 machine with the settings the way I like! brilliant!
5

Comradde PhysioProffe

January 28, 2013 at 11:01 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

Actually, if you are willing to dicke around with the registry settings directly in Windows 8, you can probably figure out how these things are encoded and set them to your liking. If you limit your putzing to just that key I referred to–and you export a backup copy of that key so you can restore it if you fucke shitte uppe–you probably won’t fucke anything uppe too severely.
6

sawells

January 29, 2013 at 5:03 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

I have a feeling that “can be made to look exactly like Windows 7″ wasn’t supposed to be a big feature for Windows 8 :)
7

dean

January 29, 2013 at 7:31 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

Microsoft’s programmers have been using “fuckken Windows Registry” as the unofficial description for years.
8

Comradde PhysioProffe

January 29, 2013 at 8:29 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

In case anyone’s still paying attention to this, it is the CaptionHeight and SmCaptionHeight registry entries that determine the thickness of the taskbar and window title bars (and the icons that appear in them). I haven’t dicked around enough to tell what the difference between these two entries is: I just changed them both. There are also CaptionWidth and SmCaptionWidth entries, which I changed to be the same as the corresponding Height entries, since the Width and Height entries were equal to begin with.

One thing that is kind of annoying is that if you use the Windows 8 Personalization control panel doohickey to change any font sizes, it dickes around with the other shit, too. Presumably this is to change around other element sizes to fit the font size you changed. So once you have tweaked these parameters in the registry, you don’t want to use the control panel doohickey, or it will revert some of your other changes.
9

F [nucular nyandrothol]

January 29, 2013 at 4:20 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment

You know, out of all the W8 tips, tricks, and software meant to make it more usable on a desktop or otherwise more familiar or usable, I’ve never run across this.

Reach into the grab bag of intarnets, you won some.
10

Nothing

January 30, 2013 at 5:30 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

Windows 8 still fucking sucks, tho. I can’t believe I actually paid money for it. Not that any Windows before it was any better.
11

Comradde PhysioProffe

January 30, 2013 at 5:33 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

Actually, the more I use it, the happier I am with Windows 8. Now that I’ve got it set up correctly, it is substantially faster, more efficient, and more fun to use than any version of Windows I’ve ever used, which includes 95, 98, 2000, XP, and Windows 7.

And getting used to the WinKey+ shortcuts is awesome.
12

sailor1031

January 31, 2013 at 5:46 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

I can’t believe anybody stills fukkes with MS windows……if you want to play with shitte that will never work right try english sports cars…and don’t call windows an operating system – it’s a fukken interface.