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Glass Toast: Get longhorn 4xxx style Glassy notification balloons in Windows XP / 2003 and Vista




In Vista, the balloon popups look like the ones from XP.

However, at some point in the longhorn beta’s, they actually looked like this:

If you want to recreate that effect for vista, use a small application GlassToast created by “Andreas Verhoeven”.

First Version

Download Link

What’s working?

+ intercept notification balloons and replace them with a glass toast (longhorn 4xxx style)
+ notifications give the same response as real balloons (eg. “click here balloons” initiates the same action with glass toasts)
+ made stuff a bit prettier.

What’s stupid?

+ all offset values are hardcoded. All others are derived from bitmap sizes.
+ stupid DWM blurring: mask.bmp is used for masking out the blur on parts that should be 100% transparent; white = invisible; black=visible in the mask.bmp
+ occasionally some problems (seems not all applications use the correct flags)

Download Link



7 Replies:

  1. This one’s amazing VG.. Looking forward to try it on my pc :roll:

  2. ^^ Thanks. ts really great. :P

  3. VG,it doesnt run in my pc………only error msg appears……suggest something! :sad:

  4. be careful while using it , it deals with explorer.exe any problems while running can cause your computer to be down

  5. Its working fine bro.. :grin:

  6. VG,my problem( Glassy notification doesn’t appear) is still there,what precaution i can take?? :!:

  7. :cool: :lol: :cool:
    Very coool !!!
    Thanks VG & Ave :razz:

    It’s an amazing app with R.O.O.B.E. !!!!


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