Blue Badge rev. 3 adds registry override bits, “Aero Peek” enabled
This day, last month, I released a small utility to patch system files in Windows 7 Build 6801, the build given out at this year’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC), to enable some features that Microsoft intentionally tried to hide from the public.
Chris Holmes and I were scratching our heads over Aero Peek, a feature that we knew worked in some builds, but wasn’t working on Blue Badge’d systems. I initially wrote it off as an unfinished quirk but I took another look…
… and noticed I totally missed a series of checks made in the registry. Each protected feature has a pair of enabling override bits that are checked for, one for those on the Microsoft domain and one for those that aren’t. I’m not sure as to the rationale behind that, but I suspect it was implemented this way to prevent Microsoft employees from leaking working override bits. Overkill in my opinion.
Revision 3 of the tool no longer patches system files, no longer requires administrative permissions, and is no longer locked to any specific build. It inserts all the known protected feature GUIDs as of build 6956 into the current user’s branch of the registry. An anonymous reader confirmed this behavior is similar to the Microsoft-internal win7features.exe utility.
Yes, this will enable Aero Peek in 6801+.
You can download revision 3 for x86 and x64 right now.
To prying eyes: To those that will inevitably reverse engineer the program, please note the creation of the 41579D76-09BA-4ABD-A49A-A2335B9CB706 key, without braces, is not a typo on my part and must remain intact.
And here I was minutes away from installing 6956 to my system. This is fantastic.
So with this in mind, is there anything left in 6956 (besides the potential of maybe being more reliable or feature-complete since it’s a higher build number) that you haven’t unlocked? Any reason to bother trading out installs?
@TurboFool: There’s nothing left to unlock. RSS is hit/miss depending on what build you use. Later builds show evidence that RSS wallpaper was violently ripped out, suggesting they’re either rewriting that piece or dropping the feature altogether. Lets hope it’s not the latter.
what about the jump list
Nice, thanks!
Raf, I think the phrase goes “Yo Da Man” :)
Peek is cool but the Jump Lists in the Start Menu is SUCH a good idea; makes it much quicker to open a file or song you were using recently. Apps from Google and Apple don’t appear to be “compatible” with Jump Lists. If it’s something they have to change I hope they do so.
BTW, build 6956 has the slightly different implementation of the new Task Bar (without the arrows) in case you didn’t know Turbo.
James
Hi Rafael, thanks for the great effort.
Btw, I have Sticky Notes and Rainmeter (serves as my gadgets) that display weather/time/notes running on desktop. Aero Peek seems to hide those as well. Is there a way to exclude certain applications from being peeked thru? ( Like the way it wont affect Sidebar’s Gadgets)
Thanks
If you want to undo Blue Badge rev2, do the following
1. open command prompt
2. kill explorer.exe
3. Type in: del C:\Windows\explorer.exe
ren C:\Windows\explorer.exe.original explorer.exe
del C:\Windows\System32\stobject.dll
ren C:\Windows\System32\stobject.dll.original stobject.dll
delete the following files and restore the backup (.original) manually
C:\Windows\System32\wisptis.exe
C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll
C:\Windows\System32\TabletPC.cpl
C:\Windows\System32\themecpl.dll
C:\Windows\System32\themeui.dll
C:\Windows\System32\powercfg.cpl
Sorry, my name is Mark not Med. Typo!!!
Do you have to undo the previous patch before applying this one?
@Mark
No, you can leave the previously patched files. The instruction above is only if you want to, since some people seem to have some issues with previous patch
Ha! I just posted this on HDTStudios and it just appeared as a comment here that i posted it!
Anyway, this is great
Interesting stuff and good work, Rafael!
Although, I clearly saw Aero Peek enabled by default in build 6956 installs i’ve seen.
Am i wrong, or did i simply see already patched installs?
And for the 6801’s users, the BluedBadge rev3 has released, so you can use it to activate aero peek in build 6801
Does anybody know if the ability for ReadyBoost to use more than 4GB is locked in 6801, or is just a rumored new feature in 7?
Thansk, Paulo it’s working, apply the bluebadge 1, but now the AeroPeak is unlocked, great post
I love you man. The main reason I want to try Win7 Beta is for this single purpose; trying out Aero Peek under the new task bar. It is amazing. My experience with Win7 is now increased to 800%. Without Aero Peek, I was about to switch back to my old Win95 taskbar style.
any chance that YOU will release a “blue badge Un-do” tool sometime soon?
I am wary to just open up command prompt and delete files…
Hey Raf,
I’m using 6956 at the moment of this post and was wondering if you think 6801 would be the build to stick with for now till the beta in early ‘09 is released. On 6801 their were some problems with the background slideshow, RSS aside, that the first image to load as the desktop background on Windows startup would seem to be stuck behind the image(s) that therein loaded in the slideshow, as if they were set to “Transparency: 98%”.
If you know, could you confirm if it was due to the patched files, or if it had just been the current state of the feature in Build 6801?
can you use this tool on build 6956 to enable the panning option?
does this work for 7000 to enable the secret features?
I guess it doesnt work. I just tried Blue Badge rev.3 on build 7000 but the panning option is still missing. Is there any manual way to enable it?
Kleintng, do you have a valid Beta Product Key? I have a “legit” copy and key as well, but i can’t get aero back (It worked in 6801, but not 7000)
Anyone have aany ideas? I don’t understand why they hide the good stuff… bastards.
@JoeBloe, I do and I have aero in the build without any hacking tool.
I did a reinstall build 6801, I dint use bluebadge and somehow watermark is gone, aero is still there, panning is there, it is like there…. Worth a try?
ok i just tried this and it stoped the sidebar or whatever it is called in windows 7 to open or even start. no matter what i do it wont start
Build 6801 sidebar is buggy. But there is a fix for it at http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?s=b5b1e1af89bb9138dbdf01d587535bd5&p=1156172#post1156172
Cheers
i have windows 7 build 7000 that hack does not work for it i get some message thats not good any 1 have a hack for build 7000 that will work
How do you get this to work it still says hiddenfeatures.exe not found when i run a bat file containing this
@echo off
copy /Y %userprofile%\Desktop\unlockProtectedFeatures.exe %windir%
cmd.exe /c takeown /f “%windir%\explorer.exe” && cacls %windir%\explorer.exe /E /G %USERNAME%:F
cmd.exe /c takeown /f “%windir%\unlockProtectedFeatures.exe” && cacls %windir%\unlockProtectedFeatures.exe /E /G %USERNAME%:F
taskkill /im explorer.exe /f
cd %windir%
start /w %windir%\unlockProtectedFeatures.exe
start explorer
pause
exit
tx man
I installed v3 and Areo which was working before in build 7000 is not working properly what all commands do I need to undo this install is it the same as the v2 undo procedure?