Patch to Explorer Task Bar

[Calvin]

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.

[John John]

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]

Hi John,

John John wrote:
> 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?

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]

John John wrote:
> 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?

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.

[John John]

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