Windows 10 Enterprise

That's okay. My monitor is not working for me.

 

I'm trying this

 

How about KMSpico? I have used it for anything from Win7 to Win10 without issues. Haven't tried Win10 2004 yet, though, but wonder what (if any) the advantages of the activators you listed are.

 

CCleaner originator is probably sipping drinks in the Bahamas right now after selling out And yes, for a number of ppApps I made of it I used firewall block scripts to prevent it calling home and such, but in the recent builds it now hangs with firewall blocks, so I had to revert to including the addresses in the hosts file. It still starts a bit slower than previous CCleaner versions but yeah -- downhill, indeed.

The way I've been using KMSpico in 7-10 images is calling it via setupcomplete.cmd, so it activates automatically during install. But I suppose the other activators could probably be used that way as well. Or maybe they have silent switches so they can be made into a sfx or something for automated activation during OS install.

Last night I used the MCT mentioned above to download Win10 Enterprise and applied KB4571744 and KB4570721 (I use VM and sysprep for updating images) and the updates installed well. After finalizing and capturing the image, I did an install of the updated image and it failed during install at "updating registry" phase. Not sure why this happened, maybe one of the new updates has broken sysprep again. I may look into it later, but I might as well wait till Patch Tuesday for the final cumulative as one of the updates I applied was a Preview update and may have issues. Then again, it seems almost every update cycle is an issue

 

Interesting to see how for extended periods of time, things can remain broken in Windows without MS fixing it. For example, the "save theme" function in Personalization is actually broken in Windows 10. You can set up a theme as you like it, with accent color, dark or light app mode, and dark or light system mode, but when you save the theme, the resulting .theme file does not save the accent colors nor the dark/light app mode. However, when you manually edit the .theme file in Notepad, you can change the accent color code (by capturing the color and using hex code), and you can add the AppMode=Dark line. And when you do, it does work! The save theme function is just broken, even now with 2004. It's just incredible how they aren't even addressing these things. This functionality has been with Windows forever. So for example I added:

Code:

; Accent Color "Dark Gray"
ColorizationColor=0X4A5459
SystemMode=Dark
AppMode=Dark

and for rotation walls set at 10 minutes:

Code:

[Slideshow]
Interval=400000
Shuffle=1
ImagesRootPath=%SystemRoot%\Web\Wallpaper\Windows

 

I'm with you there, my friend. I'm finding that after all this time, there's still things broken in Windows 10 -- some actually dating back to Vista; some are new to Win10 but a Win10 back 5 years ago and yet still not fixed.

Not to mention that after navigating all the so-called settings uwp's you still can't find what you're looking for can be somewhat maddening...

 

Yah, Freezer... To me, the modern interface layer is just to obfuscate the actual Windows desktop legacy layer underneath which has more and more detailed powers -- if just you can get through the modern app labyrinth to get there. Usually, you want to just change Adjust Date & Time... so you go to Settings, go through 4 of its sucky menus, while keeping your eye out for some half greyed-out little line of text on the side or in between items that is actually a link to the old familiar desktop utility where you can actually change the date and time. Because, OF COURSE it wouldn't be where you right-click the taskbar clock -- that would be crazy!

 

So here we have (on the same machine) two Personalization options. The one on the left is the uwp and the one on the right is the classic one, which is now hidden on Windows 10, but still available (on 1809, at least):

​

I was able to achieve this from WinAero:

Add Personalization To Control Panel In Windows 10

Restore Classic Control Panel shortcuts to Win+X menu in Windows 10

 

Some comments I came across from NoelC in which I feel exactly the same way...

https://msfn.org/board/topic/181325...4-build-19041/?do=findComment&comment=1184033​

 

Thanks for the reg entries that put back the classic theme windows, that will come in handy I was under the impression MS had actually removed those components altogether and replaced them with modern UI layer. I will look at whether or not I can put this in the cascading desktop context menu, under "Personalize Extra" because that is where it really needs to be for fast access.

Like I've been saying forever, the lack of definition in Win8/10 is detrimental to navigation and smooth, productive work. The Win7/Vista team were much more aligned with the natural way humans perceive and actuate things. In fact, the movement from Win1 to 3.1 to 7 was one, long movement toward more and more nuanced definition and catered to depth-perception (which helps organize things mentally, to feel perspective) to be totally killed off by Win8-10 -- the kindergarten big flat lego pieces approach for the big fat dummies we apparently are.

 

Yes, please do. I like those desktop cascading context menus.

Heheh, "reduce expectations". Indeed.

 

So it does work to put the classic Personalization under the "Personalization Extra" context menu, and sub-items as well if required. But when I was looking for more functions it seemed superfluous to add any more than "Personalization (Classic)" (which opens on the Themes window), and "Desktop Background". Other things like "Desktop Icons" can be added but really how many times does anyone use that? So this works for Win10 Ent x64:

Code:

;Adds cascading context "Personalize Extra" to the Desktop. Includes menu entries for: Desktop Icons, Explorer Icon Refresh, Mouse, Screen Saver, and Sound.
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\PersonalizeExtra]
"MUIVerb"="Personalize Extra"
"SubCommands"="ClassicPers;DesktopBG;ExplorerIconRefresh;Mouse;ScreenSaver;Sound"
"icon"="imageres.dll,186"
"Position"="Bottom"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\ClassicPers]
@="Personalization (Classic)"
"icon"="imageres.dll,186"
"Position"="Bottom"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\ClassicPers\Command]
@="explorer shell:::{ED834ED6-4B5A-4bfe-8F11-A626DCB6A921}"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\DesktopBG]
@="Desktop Background"
"Icon"="imageres.dll,-110"
"Position"="Bottom"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\DesktopBG\Command]
@="explorer shell:::{ED834ED6-4B5A-4bfe-8F11-A626DCB6A921} -Microsoft.Personalization\\pageWallpaper"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\ExplorerIconRefresh]
@="Explorer Icon Refresh"
"Icon"="ExplorerIconRefresh.exe"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\ExplorerIconRefresh\command]
@="ExplorerIconRefresh.exe"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\Mouse]
@="Mouse"
"icon"="DDORes.dll,28"
"Position"="Bottom"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\Mouse\Command]
@="rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL main.cpl,,0"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\ScreenSaver]
@="Screen Saver"
"Position"="Bottom"
"icon"="imageres.dll,96"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\ScreenSaver\Command]
@="rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL desk.cpl,screensaver,@screensaver"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\Sound]
@="Sound"
"Position"="Bottom"
"Icon"="mmsys.cpl"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\Sound\Command]
@="rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL mmsys.cpl ,2"

 

It's funny you mention "Desktop Icons". A couple days ago I had to Google that to find where it was buried in Windows 10. But yeah, stuff like "Desktop Icons" can be gotten to via "Personalization".

 

So I found that although the classic "Desktop Background" can be added to the context menu as above, it isn't functioning correctly in Win10. When using edited .theme files you can initiate the slideshow function and set its wallpaper interval in the .theme file as I mentioned in post #14 -- this function does work, and in the modern UI (under Settings > Personalization > Background) it will show the time interval indicated in the .theme file when that theme is active. But when you go to the classic Desktop Background it shows "30 minutes" regardless of the interval set in the .theme file. The reason is, the classic BG window only reads the interval as set in the registry. But when you have a theme selected which has its own interval set, it overrides the registry setting. And it does. It's just that the classic BG window does not read/convey the interval setting in the .theme file anymore. And you can change the registry value, at which point the classic BG window does read that -- but still whatever interval is set in the .theme file will override that. UNLESS there is no slideshow settings set in the .theme file.

So I'm only adding the Personalization (Classic) to the menu for now.

 

Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm having a devil of a time myself with Windows 10 themes. It's so very wonked.