Useless stuff: Installing Guest Additions With Aero in LH

[Kimberly5384]

Before we start: I just wanted to let you know that enabling this will make explorer glitch out--it gets stuck at a constant loop. This is just steps that allow a completely unmodified 4074 to get Aero running in VirtualBox. This method works with the latest version of VirtualBox, as well as Guest Additions.

By default we can choose from three themes, Windows XP, Slate, and Jade.
But with a little bit of modification we can get Aero! First, we need to follow these steps:

Step 1: Insert the Guest Additions .iso into your VM and right-click on the *.iso in Explorer, and click "Open".

Step 2. Right-click on "VBoxWindowsAdditions-x86" if you're using a 32-bit guest or "VBoxWindowsAddititona-amd64" if your guest is 64-bit.

Step 3. Click on "Other Properties", and select "compatibility".

Step 4. Check "Run this program in Compatibility Mode" and select Windows XP.

Step 5. Launch the VirtualBox installer and proceed with installation. Once done, click "finish" to reboot.

Step 6. After you've rebooted into your VM, open a Run box (Win+R) and enter in "C:\Program Files\VirtualBox Guest Additions" and click OK.

Step 7. Search for every *.exe in this folder (there aren't too many) and set them all in compatibility mode for Windows XP.

Step 8. Go to Start --> All Programs, right-click on the Startup folder and click "Open".

Step 9. Go to the Guest Additions folder and copy VBoxTray.exe

Step 10. Go back to the startup folder and paste a shortcut, then reboot.

[Credit to User Zacchi4k for these steps]

Now we need to follow Melcher's steps for enabling Aero just as you would in VMWare.

Browse to C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\ and copy the file jade.theme and the jade folder to another directory
Rename jade.theme and jade.msstyles to respectively aero.theme and aero.msstyles. Rename the folder to aero too.
Open the aero.theme with notepad or wordpad and change `DisplayName=@themeui.dll,-203toDisplayName=Aero`
Next, replace the remaining two instances of the word jade in the same file with aero (use CTRL+H)
Copy the newly created aero.theme and the aero folder back in the C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\ directory

Then we open the Registry Editor, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer and create a DWORD called MILExplorer. Now, we run notepad, and save the following code as a .bat file:

Code: Select all

@echo off
%systemdrive%\windows\i386\sbctl.exe start
rundll32 %systemdrive%\windows\system32\uxdesk.dll,DwmStartComposition
%systemdrive%\windows\i386\sbctl.exe stop
tskill explorer.exe
%systemdrive%\windows\i386\sbctl.exe start

And there you are! I'm a little confused as to why explorer just loops, but I thought it would be useful to someone by posting this here.

[TheCollector1988]

What about builds such as 37xx, 40xx besides 4074?

[Kimberly5384]

Apparently the only other builds that use the same Aero engine as 4074 are 4066 and 4081, so this tutorial should work with those builds as well. I'm not certain though.

[Kimberly5384]

I'm going to be a little ambitious about this and see if I can get any other builds to work with this same compatibility method. I have 4042 on hand right now, so that's the one I'm going to try out next.

[TheCollector1988]

For step 9, where do I copy VBoxTray.exe?

[skywalker06]

For step 9, where do I copy VBoxTray.exe?

Copy VBoxTray.exe from "C:\Program Files\VirtualBox Guest Additions" from step 6, to the startup folder step 8

[Kimberly5384]

For step 9, where do I copy VBoxTray.exe?

Copy VBoxTray.exe from "C:\Program Files\VirtualBox Guest Additions" from step 6, to the startup folder step 8

TC88 and I discussed the problem he was having on Discord and we managed to solve the issue. But I probably should have responded here as well.

Currently, I still need to activate/de-timebomb my 4042 machine, so afterwards I'll check if Aero is possible.

[Kimberly5384]

I won't be working on this project anymore as I acquired a version of VMWare recently, but feel free to continue on my work.