PNG Formats in Vista

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zack Whittaker \(R2 Mentor\)
  • Start date Start date
Z

Zack Whittaker \(R2 Mentor\)

Try this, see if this works.

On Windows XP (with Classic theme):
1) Type in at Run, "winver" then press OK.
2) Press Alt+Printscreen when About Windows is active.
3) Open in Paint, and set the canvas size as 2x2.
4) Paste in the screenshot of *just* the Winver box.
5) Save as a PNG format on your desktop.

On Windows Vista (with Classic theme):
1) Type in at Run, "winver" then press OK.
2) Press Alt+Printscreen when About Windows is active.
3) Open in Paint, and set the canvas size as 2x2.
4) Paste in the screenshot of *just* the Winver box.
5) Save as a PNG format on your desktop.

Now compare the file sizes... which is bigger and which is smaller? I did
this on my two machines, and it seems that the PNG compression isn't quite
what it should be, because I've got two files exactly the same (both on
Classic themed view) and there was a huge difference, about 100kb between
the two. Can anyone else repro this?

Thanks :o)

--
Zack Whittaker
Microsoft Beta (Windows Server R2 Beta Mentor)
» ZackNET Enterprises: www.zacknet.co.uk
» MSBlog on ResDev: http://msblog.resdev.net
» ZackNET Forum: www.zacknet.co.uk/forum
» VistaBase: www.zacknet.co.uk/vistabase
» This mailing is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no
rights. All opinions expressed are those of myself unless stated so, and not
of my employer, best friend, mother or cat. Let's be clear on that one!
 
Heh Andre, that wouldn't matter since winver.exe is a fixed size, the image
will be at the same height/width no matter what resolution you're running.
 
Yeh it is, totally the same - and both on Classic so that everything is the
same - I don't get it, the Vista PNG's are loads bigger!

--
Zack Whittaker
Microsoft Beta (Windows Server R2 Beta Mentor)
» ZackNET Enterprises: www.zacknet.co.uk
» MSBlog on ResDev: http://msblog.resdev.net
» ZackNET Forum: www.zacknet.co.uk/forum
» VistaBase: www.zacknet.co.uk/vistabase
» This mailing is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no
rights. All opinions expressed are those of myself unless stated so, and not
of my employer, best friend, mother or cat. Let's be clear on that one!


--- Original message follows ---
 
I'm thinking that the size of a PNG is determined not only by the resolution
but the amount of colors on the screen. I converted all of my bitmaps over
to PNG, and they're all different file sizes. All of them are 1024x768, but
some are only 500kb while some others are a 1MB. Each bitmap was converted
the same way. It seemed that the ones with more colors or more shades of
colors were larger than the ones without as many colors.
 
The thing is though, both of my screens are exactly the same pretty much.
Both 1024x768, both Classic themed (for this exercise anyway), both 32 bit
colour, all the same...

In general, Vista PNG's are much larger than XP PNG's.

--
Zack Whittaker
Microsoft Beta (Windows Server R2 Beta Mentor)
» ZackNET Enterprises: www.zacknet.co.uk
» MSBlog on ResDev: http://msblog.resdev.net
» ZackNET Forum: www.zacknet.co.uk/forum
» VistaBase: www.zacknet.co.uk/vistabase
» This mailing is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no
rights. All opinions expressed are those of myself unless stated so, and not
of my employer, best friend, mother or cat. Let's be clear on that one!


--- Original message follows ---
 
But nicely skinned for Vista though ;o)

--
Zack Whittaker
Microsoft Beta (Windows Server R2 Beta Mentor)
» ZackNET Enterprises: www.zacknet.co.uk
» MSBlog on ResDev: http://msblog.resdev.net
» ZackNET Forum: www.zacknet.co.uk/forum
» VistaBase: www.zacknet.co.uk/vistabase
» This mailing is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no
rights. All opinions expressed are those of myself unless stated so, and not
of my employer, best friend, mother or cat. Let's be clear on that one!


--- Original message follows ---
 
Yeah, I ran across the skin last night. My mouth watered and I had to get
it. I don't remember where, but it required Windowblinds. It does have
Aero Glass too, but I'm guessing you either have to buy Windowblinds or you
have to still have a DX9 card to run it because the transparency was not
there and it looks like just Aero. There were the choices of Aero Glass and
Aero Express - I chose glass, and I only got Express. I'm leaning towards
it needing a DX9 card because I was running a different skin that did have
transparency. I also downloaded something that works like Flip3D when you
press Alt+Tab. It's only a 30-day trial unless you buy, which I won't.
It's pretty good, but it does eat a lot of RAM and it uses your CPU instead
of your video card. I keep the program shut off most of the time. I've
also had several sidebar programs installed in the past, although I don't
have one right now. Most of them are generally good, but a little on the
buggy side. The taskbar in this skin looks exactly like Vista, with the
oversized start orb and the black and transparent taskbar. The start menu
also looks like Aero Glass - transparent with the icons missing from all the
options in the right column of the start menu, and the user's icon sticking
out of the start menu. The search feature is also there in the menu, but it
doesn't work. (Since it's just a skin.) This will have to do until I can
get my hands on the real thing. Along with this are three screenshots of my
computer and a picture or two of my computer itself - just for those of you
that want to see one of the wide variety of computers in the diverse
computer world.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5328/vistalookalike9st.jpg
http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/1364/vistalookalike20cw.jpg
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/3788/vistalookalike38sg.jpg
http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/7831/img05115rt.jpg
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/5096/p10100039cx.jpg
 
The resulting dialog dimensions from WinVer on my lab XP and lab Vista
were different (both using Classic theme), and if the below was
followed, it would be two different sized images compared, which would
not have proven a compression test. I took a sample BMP from a third
computer, and used MSPaint on both the XP and Vista lab boxes to
convert to PNG. The resulting image's sizes were identical.
 
Back
Top