Get rid of the immersive menu in Win10 1809 and above

aerolite.msstyles

aerolite.png

NoImmersiveWin10.md

1. Download tools: ResourceHacker and mssstyleEditor, then unpack them
2. Download resources: Win8 theme for Win10, and then uppack it, we will need 'Windows 8 RP Themes for Windows 10\Theme\Themes For 10 Build 14393 Anniversary Update\Windows 8 RP\aero 8 RP.msstyle'.
3. Open it with ResourceHacker, export IMAGE 1055:0 and IMERSIVE 1:0.
4. Make a backup of the original aerolite.msstyles and make a copy of it to your working folder (arbitary)
5. Open it with ResourceHacker, Go to 'Action -> Add an Image or Other Binary Resource' or hit Ctrl+M to open the "Add Binary Resource" Dialog. Choose the menu image resource file that is going to be used, then change the "Resource Type" to IMAGE and resource name to be what ever available, in my case, 993.
6. Change the value of IMERSIVE 1:0, by importing the data from "aero 8 RP.msstyle"
7. Save the aerolite.msstyles and exit "ResourceHacker"
8. Open it with mssstyleEditor, navigate to ImmersiveStart::Menu -> POPUPITEM, change or add the following properties of 'Common':

IMAGECOUNT = 2
BORDERSIZE = 20
IMAGEFILE = 993 // This has to be consistent with the image id that was added
SIZINGMARGINS = 3, 3, 3, 3
CONTENTMARGINS = 0, 0, 1, 1

9. Save a copy and exit
10. Open the copy to check if changes are saved and ImmersiveStart::Menu -> POPUPITEM has a subitem IMAGEFILE.
11. Copy the modified copy to %windir%\Resources\Themes\aero\aerolite.msstyles
12. Ajdust the permission of %windir%\Resources\Themes\aero\VSCache, make Administrator own it and take full control of it.
13. Delete Aerolite.msstyles_1033_96_01.mss or what ever inside that folder, Do this everytime before testing new modified aerolite.msstyles
14. Switch your theme to aerolite, the context menu on your desktop should be changed

Note:

1. DWMWindow\Common Properties\IMAGEATLAS = Image of the title bar buttons
2. ImmersiveStart::Menu\POPUPITEM = Image of the explorer context menu items
3. Menu\POPUPITEM = Image of the menu item in the rest of the system

TODO:

1. Find out how to customize the context menu in the taskbar and the start menu/screen.

Get the modified aerolite.msstyles:

Install git for Windows and run this in cmd or powershell: git clone git clone https://gist.github.com/971e247871154427d5e62c7b3a7ac1d4.git

You need to install uxtheme patcher to make it work!

Update

The colored.msstyles is a modified version of aero.msstyles, it features the same explorer context menu as the aerolite.msstyles. In addition, it supports different color for inactive caption bars and may look better in the absence of AeroGlass8. This version is closer to the native look of Win10. This file is built using similar methods documented above. Step 5 is skipped.

To use this file, first, enable Colored Title Bars in Winaero Tweaker, then disable it again. Next replace %windir%\Resources\Themes\colored\colored.msstyles with the colored.msstyles in this gist. Finally re-enable the Colored Title Bars and everything should work.

colored_aerolite.msstyles is an improved version of colored.msstyles, it changes the explorer listview and scroll bars to aerolite style.

colored.msstyles

colored.png

colored_aerolite.msstyles

Is there no other way around? Does the dll still work on 1909 etc?

Just confirmed that it works in 1909 and 20H2. I just discovered that the msstyle allows much more customization than I expected, so I think you could play around that file. See the colored.msstyle.