How do I achieve desktop overlay blur on Windows?

Question

When I was installing AMD graphics drivers on Windows 10, I noticed a blurred background look, which is a style I want to achieve in my application.

I have tried using UpdateLayeredWindow, but it does not apply a blur effect. I have tried using DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea and DwmEnableBlurBehindWindow but I am unsure how to customize window coloring and image overlays.

There is a DwmGetColorizationColor function, but there is no matching DwmSetColorizationColor function. There are ways to set system-wide coloring, but I would like colorization to affect solely my application window. Also, Aero Glass™ was removed from Windows 8 and 10.

How do I include these effects in my application using WinForms in a way that works on Windows 8/10? If WPF can render these effects, how does it do it and how do I achieve a similar effect on WinForms?

Which technology do you use for the application? Forms? UWP? WPF? — Stefan, Aug 04 '17 at 06:42
Or try this one: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11386452/blurring-the-background-of-a-semi-transparent-form-like-aero-glass — Stefan, Aug 04 '17 at 06:51
What system function calls does WPF make to achieve that effect? — MathuSum Mut, Aug 04 '17 at 07:16
On Windows Vista and 7, Aero Glass works as intended. Unfortunately, that feature was removed from Windows 8 and 10. The installer UI screenshot is taken on Windows 10, hence one can safely conclude that it *is not* using Dwm Aero Glass functionality. — MathuSum Mut, Aug 04 '17 at 08:11

MathuSum Mut · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-25T11:30:52.757

After months of searching, I have finally found the answer. To achieve the glass effect on Windows 10, one must use the undocumented SetWindowCompositionAttribute function in user32.dll.

BOOL WINAPI SetWindowCompositionAttribute(HWND hwnd, WINCOMPATTRDATA* pAttrData)

where the layout of the WINCOMPATTRDATA structure is:

struct WINCOMPATTRDATA {
    DWORD attribute; // the attribute to query, see below
    PVOID pData; //buffer to store the result
    ULONG dataSize; //size of the pData buffer
};

and attribute can have values from the DWMWINDOWATTRIBUTE enum.

How do I achieve desktop overlay blur on Windows?

1 Answers1