[help]remove Dot Frame

i dislike the dotted frame when you select buttons, icons under windows xp and i want to remove it.

for example:

it really looks ugly. does anybody has a suggestion how to remove it?

Originally posted by acyon@Jul 3 2004, 03:08 PM
i dislike the dotted frame when you select buttons, icons under windows xp and i want to remove it.

for example:

it really looks ugly. does anybody has a suggestion how to remove it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've seen two responses to a question like this; one is wrong, the other I haven't been able to find more information about.

The first one you might see recommended to you is to turn off, or on... on I think... the "Hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation until I press the Alt key" option in the Display-->Effects settings. Whatever this tip was, exactly, it seems to work the first time you do it, so you're like, sweet, this works. But it doesn't actually work (I mean, if it did, it would be coincidental, because the option doesn't have anything to do with what the problem is, of course)

The other one I've seen is that disabling the dotted rectangle requires a hex edit of some system file. But I don't know which file that is.

But yeah, if anyone knows, I would be interested to hear the details.

Edit: I did a search, and it was Flyakite who wrote that he hexedited a dotted selection rectangle out of user32.dll. That being said, I have no idea what to hexedit in that file, so that still doesn't help

#185526

thx for your reply pst9er.

the first solution does not work in all cases. i still have the frame on many buttons. but it was a very good hint! :smartass:

#185534

Originally posted by acyon@Jul 3 2004, 04:09 PM
thx for your reply pst9er.

the first solution does not work in all cases. i still have the frame on many buttons. but it was a very good hint! :smartass:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah... oh... if you thought I was suggesting it as a good solution, what I meant was that some people will suggest that you try it, but from my own experience, I've found that it does not work.

Hopefully someone will know about the hex edit required

#185536

Here's the info on the hex edit:

http://virtualplastic.net/msgboard/thread....rum=0&thread=27

#185669

Originally posted by undefined@Jul 3 2004, 08:37 PM
Here's the info on the hex edit:

http://virtualplastic.net/msgboard/thread....rum=0&thread=27

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Woooooo! I thought from the top of that thread that you misunderstood what dotted border we were talking about, but there it is, toward the bottom. I'm about to test it now--just hex edited my user32.dll. I have XP Home SP1, and the offset where I needed to make the changes was 13A1A, I think, in case anyone else tries and gets something similar. It should be on the 13A10 line, at the very least, looks like.

Gonna reboot now and replace my user32, I'll let everyone know how this goes.

Nice work, undefined:D

#185687

Yup, this works:D

So, for the record/for those who don't want to read through the VirtualPlastic thread, getting rid of the "dot frame" can be accomplished by:

Open user32.dll in a hex editor

Search for the hex values 56 51 68 and change them to EB 18 68

Then what I did was save the file as user32hack.dll, rebooted into the recovery console, copied user32.dll to user32_dll.bak just in case something bad happened, and then copied user32hack.dll over user32.dll.

Reboot, and viola, no more dot frame.

Also disables the selection border when, for example, you hilight items on the desktop. I don't miss that too much. And if I recall, there's some setting to change that to a solid-line border anyway so I have a feeling that would work even with this hex edit.

#185696

:lol: yoohoo! no dotted frames any more!

thx again for your link, undefinied.

i become more and more happy with windows. i guess i won't buy a mac any more :canadian:

i am just wondering that so few people are annoyed by this uglyness...

#185702