Hi all,

As you may (or may not) be aware - there was a glaring BUG in NT4.0 that
restricted display of icons in the Taskbar to 16 colours only - which
resulted in many looking DREADFUL.

Thanks to help from the owner of the site 'BearWindows' and Dr. Hoiby, I
am now able to offer a solution to this problem.

Have a look at http://nt4ref.zcm.com.au/desktop.htm#taskbar for
instructions to accomplish this.

All the best,

Calvin.

Interesting. Using the hex editor you suggest on Explorer.exe
v4.72.3612.1700 I only find 1 6A 01 6A 00 6A 01 string at hex address
BC18. Where else would it be found?

John

Calvin wrote:

Hi John,

John John wrote:
Interesting indeed - the version I have here is V4.00.1381.0282, which
is the state my machine was in after SP6a + SRP + hotfixes. (I have
verified the Explorer.exe version number is the same on several other
machines that have gone through a similar SP6a + SRP + hotfix regime)

The Version number you quoted suggests you are using a copy of
Explorer.exe added by the 'Active Desktop' update. I have NO idea how
this 'patch' trick would work under these circumstances. It might be
worth you having a talk to the guy at BearWindows (
http://www.geocities.com/bearwindows/ ) - he may be able to disassemble
this version of Explorer for you, and work out what code needs to be
altered.

If you want to have a try of figuring it out yourself, he gives a
detailed disassembly of the code sequences that need to be altered on
http://www.geocities.com/bearwindows/winnt4.htm at 'problem 9' on that
page.

Your situation is exactly why I put the warning in step 4 of
http://nt4ref.zcm.com.au/desktop.htm#taskbar - as you can imagine,
patching code without really understanding what it is altering can be
REAL dangerous !

Calvin.

Calvin wrote:

Thanks, Calvin. I have IE 5.5 on this box. That would be the reason
for the much newer Explorer.exe on my machine. I will check the links
you gave.

Regards;

John

John John wrote:

Hi John,

EXACTLY why I get REALLY annoyed with Microsoft sometimes ! I presume
you hadn't installed the 'Active Desktop' update, just installed IE 5.5 ??

Typical of Microsoft's arrogant approach - they reserve the right to
stuff with files on your system that have NOTHING to do with the
application you are installing - without even so much as a 'by your
leave' !!

Calvin.

Calvin wrote:

I have always said it and I will always say it, the decision to tie IE
and Windows Explorer into a Gordian Knot was a huge mistake!

John

John John wrote:
Hi John,

Did you get in contact with the owner of Bear Windows ? Was he able to
help you ?

I was thinking it may be worth a try of patching your copy of
Explorer.exe (only the single sequence of bytes) and see whether it
works. Probably best if you did this on a machine with a parallel
install of NT4 in place that you can boot to though - if Explorer.exe
fails it could be a bit messy otherwise trying to 'back out' :-)

Calvin.

Calvin wrote:

I haven't pursued it any farther at this time. I may try your
suggestion and see if making the changes on the single string makes any
differences. I should be able change it on a copy of Explorer and then
just kill the regular Explorer and see if the modified version makes any
difference.

John

Hi! I have installed the Windows Desktop Update from Internet Explorer 6.0
SP1. Now I use Explorer.exe with version 4.72.3612.1700. The string you must
change are from 01 53 6A 01 6A 32 E8 to 01 53 6A 11 6A 32 E8 (01 to 11 on the
middle). It looks much better with 256 colours than 16

"John John" wrote:

Is that on Windows NT 4.0 or on Windows 2000?

I just tried that on my NT 4.0 box and after killing the regular
Explorer and starting the hacked Explorer version I see no taskbar at
all, the same as was happening when changing the sole 6A 01 6A 00 6A 01
string as explained by Calvin on his web page. The Explorer version on
my NT box is the same as yours, 4.72.3612.1700 but my IE version is at 5.5.

John

David wrote:

John John wrote:
I just checked a Win2k box - the version of Explorer after SP4 +
hotfixes is 5.0.3700.6690

I had a horrible feeling the trick wouldn't work on the Active Desktop
version of Explorer. If you guys can nail down a working procedure for
this version I will add it to NT4Ref.

Interesting - obviously we are missing something here, with one machine
having a successful patch, and another failing :-(

Calvin.

Sorry for my deficient information.
I use Windows NT SP6a + Hotfix, Security Rollup Package etc., and for
couple of days days ago I installed the WDU from IE6.

Both Windows 95 and NT doesn't have WDU as standard, so I tried to install
Windows Desktop Update from Internet Explorer 5.0 on an other machine with
Windows 95B. Now have I Explorer.exe v4.72.3612.1700 on a Windows 95 machine
with Internet Explorer 5.0. I replaced the string in the Explorer.exe and
then I replaced itself from DOS and finally restarted the PC.
The result is, the desktop looked exactly alike and worked ditto on Win95
IE5.0 and WinNT4 IE6.0.

The source are http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversio...hp/t44731.html
the replay at 11 december 2005.


"Calvin" wrote:

John John wrote:
I just checked a Win2k box - the version of Explorer after SP4 +
hotfixes is 5.0.3700.6690

I had a horrible feeling the trick wouldn't work on the Active Desktop
version of Explorer. If you guys can nail down a working procedure for
this version I will add it to NT4Ref.