You can actually try out play run with trailing windows yourself. There is a website that acts as a emulator, and lets you move around trailing dialog boxes (see video description).
It's a little more complicated than that. In XP, dragging a window caused it to draw itself in the new place. Then every frame, all apps were supposed to repaint. Meaning the app behind the window would draw over the old windows. However when the app behind wasn't responding, the window would not be drawn over. Once DWM was introduced, things worked differently. Now all windows got their own virtual screen, and then DWM would merge all the screens together. Meaning that if the app stopped responding it would just go invisible or freeze. However, MDI sub-windows can still have the trails bug.
Fun fact: you can still see this effect in Vista/7 when using old windows manager (using aero basic, not aero glass). Since Widnows 8 only new manager is available.
- understandable - straight to the point - good explanation - no 10 minutes video great video, i wish people actually did this instead of giving me a 10 minutes explanation that i wouldn't understand, keep up the good content
I fully expected you to first explain the history of windows and go and yap about shit that has nothing to do with the window trails. Thank you for being straight to the point.
Note that disabling DWM (which happens automatically if you use Basic or Classic themes) in Windows Vista or 7 would cause trails of doom if an application stopped responding still. Starting with Windows 8 it was no longer possible to safely disable DWM, so trails of doom became a thing of the past.
Even know Windows 8 will still function without DWM but you'll be limited to desktop apps only and you'll have no start menu. Unless you use 3rd party apps to add a windows 7 style start menu. But then there is the issue of the black logon screen and a blacked out UI element stuck on screen at all times. Although using Windows 8 without DWM will eventually result in a BSOD from my experience with experimenting the idea but that it will take a quite awhile before it happens. Allowing to get some usage of the OS in that state. Unlike with Windows 10 and 11 which will not only softlock or brick if you attempt to disable DWM.exe but if you manage to get a successful boot up without DWM.exe. The OS will lag, bug out alot and just dies due to the fact OS has become so reliant on it, that it literally can't function without it for more a minute. Which means if you have an issue causing DWM to crash or fail to launch, you're basically screwed until you can fix it.
The explanation at the beginning isn't _quite_ accurate. It's not that the app is drawing the window that's responding and not erasing it, it's that the window which is responding is drawing itself, and the window behind it is not. So the graphics buffer still contains whatever was there before, whether that be the unresponsive window's old contents, or the contents of the window that's displayed in front of it from the last frame. It went away in Vista because Microsoft changed the compositor and gave each window its own dedicated buffer, which the compositor then layers together into the full desktop buffer that's sent to the screen. The transparency and windows "Aero" theme had a lot to do with this, as that type of transparency wouldn't be possible without the changes in the new compositor.
That's because the Windows Pre-installation Environment (Windows PE), used by the installer in Windows Vista and later, doesn't have DWM because it doesn't need it to run the installer.
That sounds like _more_ optimization (in terms of performance!). Unless of course, we're talking about user experience (which we are). Just wanted to make that clear, sorry.
Trails can still occur in modern day Windows if the OS is lagging so badly to the point it can't keep up or glitched to the point where the re-draw doesn't occur correctly. However if the trails are being caused by lag, it will usually fix it's self when it finally catches up. I know this because I mess around with VMs and they often tend to be slower than real hardware. Not to mention I tend to find ways of breaking the OS when running it in a VM.
This can still happen in Windows 10 and 11, possibly for different reasons. But it still happens, and probably more often these days that in the days of XP.
@@windowswexplained 🤣🤣🤣My favorite was the Blue Screen of Death. The MS solution never worked so I figured a work around. Don't ask as I don't remember. I decided to see how long I could keep XP going after support ended. Was easy for over a year, then harder and harder. At least the last 6-8 months I was spending about 12 hours/day, then one day Xp literally starting to visually melting like a kaleidoscope before my eyes. I spent so many hours on it for so long that I did not replace my computer for 12 months - when I felt recovered from the ordeal. Made up my mind - Never Again.🤣
@@windowswexplained Using the basic theme is basically disabling DWM (you can try killing DWM on Vista or 7, it'll go to basic theme) so the apps are now using direct access instead of being handled by DWM
You can actually try out play run with trailing windows yourself. There is a website that acts as a emulator, and lets you move around trailing dialog boxes (see video description).
And you can do it in Paint, just hold alt and drag a screenshot of a window
@@DryPaperHammerBro Even now Paint is AI-powered, the feature still exist.
Imagine you can drag the AI-generated artwork in that way.
It's a little more complicated than that. In XP, dragging a window caused it to draw itself in the new place. Then every frame, all apps were supposed to repaint. Meaning the app behind the window would draw over the old windows. However when the app behind wasn't responding, the window would not be drawn over. Once DWM was introduced, things worked differently. Now all windows got their own virtual screen, and then DWM would merge all the screens together. Meaning that if the app stopped responding it would just go invisible or freeze. However, MDI sub-windows can still have the trails bug.
Great explanation. Thank you!
Was gonna write this. The video is just plain wrong
If the app freezes, the DWM still has its contents and it remains visible.
nerd
@@RozeeVeritas true
Fun fact: you can still see this effect in Vista/7 when using old windows manager (using aero basic, not aero glass). Since Widnows 8 only new manager is available.
- understandable
- straight to the point
- good explanation
- no 10 minutes video
great video, i wish people actually did this instead of giving me a 10 minutes explanation that i wouldn't understand, keep up the good content
I fully expected you to first explain the history of windows and go and yap about shit that has nothing to do with the window trails.
Thank you for being straight to the point.
Note that disabling DWM (which happens automatically if you use Basic or Classic themes) in Windows Vista or 7 would cause trails of doom if an application stopped responding still. Starting with Windows 8 it was no longer possible to safely disable DWM, so trails of doom became a thing of the past.
Even know Windows 8 will still function without DWM but you'll be limited to desktop apps only and you'll have no start menu. Unless you use 3rd party apps to add a windows 7 style start menu. But then there is the issue of the black logon screen and a blacked out UI element stuck on screen at all times. Although using Windows 8 without DWM will eventually result in a BSOD from my experience with experimenting the idea but that it will take a quite awhile before it happens. Allowing to get some usage of the OS in that state.
Unlike with Windows 10 and 11 which will not only softlock or brick if you attempt to disable DWM.exe but if you manage to get a successful boot up without DWM.exe. The OS will lag, bug out alot and just dies due to the fact OS has become so reliant on it, that it literally can't function without it for more a minute. Which means if you have an issue causing DWM to crash or fail to launch, you're basically screwed until you can fix it.
the fact that they actually added this as an mspaint easter egg in older windows versions is kinda rad
I believe you had to hold down Shift or something like that while dragging a selection
Fun fact: crop a photo and paste into mspaint, press shift button on your keyboard and drag the picture around, you'll get the same results.
The explanation at the beginning isn't _quite_ accurate. It's not that the app is drawing the window that's responding and not erasing it, it's that the window which is responding is drawing itself, and the window behind it is not. So the graphics buffer still contains whatever was there before, whether that be the unresponsive window's old contents, or the contents of the window that's displayed in front of it from the last frame.
It went away in Vista because Microsoft changed the compositor and gave each window its own dedicated buffer, which the compositor then layers together into the full desktop buffer that's sent to the screen. The transparency and windows "Aero" theme had a lot to do with this, as that type of transparency wouldn't be possible without the changes in the new compositor.
Thank you!
Fun Fact this can happen in the windows 10 recovery usb and i think in the recovery environment
Interesting. It seems there's less graphics optimization for applications in recovery environments.
That's because the Windows Pre-installation Environment (Windows PE), used by the installer in Windows Vista and later, doesn't have DWM because it doesn't need it to run the installer.
That sounds like _more_ optimization (in terms of performance!).
Unless of course, we're talking about user experience (which we are).
Just wanted to make that clear, sorry.
Trails can still occur in modern day Windows if the OS is lagging so badly to the point it can't keep up or glitched to the point where the re-draw doesn't occur correctly. However if the trails are being caused by lag, it will usually fix it's self when it finally catches up. I know this because I mess around with VMs and they often tend to be slower than real hardware. Not to mention I tend to find ways of breaking the OS when running it in a VM.
Good point
Fun fact: it can happen while you're playing gta 3 on windows 7 and it crashes
awesome video
quick
and tells an answer to the million year old question
just what i need at 3 am
This can still happen in Windows 10 and 11, possibly for different reasons. But it still happens, and probably more often these days that in the days of XP.
Fond memories🤣
Lol those days were fun. At least if your computer was frozen, you could play "snake" with the trailing windows.
@@windowswexplained 🤣🤣🤣My favorite was the Blue Screen of Death. The MS solution never worked so I figured a work around. Don't ask as I don't remember. I decided to see how long I could keep XP going after support ended. Was easy for over a year, then harder and harder. At least the last 6-8 months I was spending about 12 hours/day, then one day Xp literally starting to visually melting like a kaleidoscope before my eyes. I spent so many hours on it for so long that I did not replace my computer for 12 months - when I felt recovered from the ordeal. Made up my mind - Never Again.🤣
So was this a thing in earlier versions of Windows, too? Because I primarily remember this as a Windows XP thing.
I remember Half Life 2 used to do this sometimes on my old computer back in like 2008/2009
Wait, so Solitaire used to crash when you won? :P
Also happens when a 32bit aplication crashes
That was quickly explained!
Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
It had this to windows 96/98/ME/2000 in some cases windows vista/7
I actually did this in windows 10 when trying to reset my graphics card driver
btw windows 7 with basic theme have this problem
Interesting! It seems that the GUI is not as in recovery environments and basic versions of Windows.
@@windowswexplained Using the basic theme is basically disabling DWM (you can try killing DWM on Vista or 7, it'll go to basic theme) so the apps are now using direct access instead of being handled by DWM
@@noorhafizat That make sense. It explains why the trailing-windows error occurs in recovery environments and basic themes.
1:27 RIP headphone users
Pentru o viață sănătoasă, faceți mișcare cel puțin 30 de minute în fiecare zi.
I'm dealing with this right now on windows 10 XD
This got right to the point lol
happens on win 7 too.
Especially when gta 3 crashes in basic theme
“Aero glass” - even the name sounds incredible. Why oh why did they trash that incredible, popular new feature? Oh yeah, iOS 7 😒
roblox