Is there any way to integrate these modifications into the WIM image?
I had to lookup what a WIM image is. That appears to be something dedicated Microsoft backup, so that you can't expect that it would include any third party UI-modification software. That's how i see it, never used WIM images. But I am not sure about the fact WIM does or does not include any third party apps.
...if somebody uses Windhawk, would like to know how it works.
I do use Windhawk and I am very satisfied by the result I achieved with my installed mods, but it would go much too far to serve you by telling how it works. Much is explained on the
site of the maker and on
github/ramensoftware. Please click those links for information.
But I certainly can explain some points about Windhawk.
- Windhawk is a universal app to change all kinds of UI, thereby using so called Mods. For certain functions you need to install certain mods. During installing, the mod will be compiled. Because all mods are present uncompiled (as source-language) the diskspace taken by this app is rather huge: in my system it takes 670 MByte. But when in action, it only takes a very little amount of memory and processoractivity. In my system it takes 0,5 Mbyte memory and 0% processoractivity, when I look at it via Taskmanager.
- I use Windhawk to modify:
- The taskbar: color, size, icon-size, size of the taskbar-labels, color and size of the progress-indicator, position of the startbutton
- The system tray: Set distance and size of the system tray icons, remove volume button, network button, battery button, microphone button etc. For volume I use Eartrumpet. That has an more convinient way to set the balance between audio channels.
- The notification centre: the only thing of the notification centre I want to use is the calendar, everything else is removed by a mod.
- The clock: My system clock in the right of the system tray has big characters and no date.
- I use Windhawk in the installed version. Portable is possible too, but I experienced some problems with taskbar -modifications that don't function in portable version. You can choose during installation between installed or portable installation.
- If you use VirtualBox on your system, you will have to make an exception in the overall settings of Windhawk, so that VirtualBox is excepted from the Windhawk processes. No problem if you know how (which is described on the Github site).
...where it saves the modifications, the files, the registry.
- The Mods are saved somewhere in the program-area (in the folder Program Files\Windhawk
- Files that belong to Windhawk are mostly stored in Program Data\Windhawk. Exactly what goes where I did not figure out, because I don't need to know exactly.
- All settings of the mods go into the registry (in installed version), but setting back those values does not garantee all settings indeed are back.
The best way to save settings is make textfiles for each Mod and export the settings of the mods under 'advanced' into those files (copy and past). Sounds complicated, but is not. After renewed installation (ie on a different system) you just can paste the exported data to the mods and all settings are back. As an example, I will show you my settings for the clock mod:
{"ShowSeconds":0,"TimeFormat":"HH':'mm","DateFormat":"","WeekdayFormat":"","TopLine":"","BottomLine":"%time%","MiddleLine":"%weekday%","TooltipLine":"","Width":180,"Height":60,"TextSpacing":2,"WebContentsItems[0].Url":"","WebContentsItems[0].BlockStart":"<item>","WebContentsItems[0].Start":"<title><![CDATA[","WebContentsItems[0].End":"]]></title>","WebContentsItems[0].MaxLength":10,"WebContentsUpdateInterval":10,"TimeStyle.Visible":0,"TimeStyle.TextColor":"","TimeStyle.TextAlignment":"Center","TimeStyle.FontSize":0,"TimeStyle.FontFamily":"","TimeStyle.FontWeight":"","TimeStyle.FontStyle":"","TimeStyle.FontStretch":"","TimeStyle.CharacterSpacing":0,"DateStyle.TextColor":"","DateStyle.TextAlignment":"Left","DateStyle.FontSize":19,"DateStyle.FontFamily":"Arial","DateStyle.FontWeight":"","DateStyle.FontStyle":"","DateStyle.FontStretch":"Normal","DateStyle.CharacterSpacing":0,"oldTaskbarOnWin11":0,"MaxWidth":0}
If you make an real image of your system partition by any imaging app, all the mods and all its settings will be saved as well, so that when you restore that image, Windhawk and its settings will be on the level when you made the image. But there is no way exporting windhawk and its settings to some installation routine, so that you could quickly install it in another system. And why would you? Windhawk installation just takes a few minutes, after that you would need to install mod after mod (make good administration of that) and import the settings for each mod.
When I still used Start11, the total of settings could be exported easily to one big settings file, which is a lot easier. But Windhawk brings a lot more options for changing things I'd like to change. So for me it's is no big deal setting up the whole, as I only need to do that very few times in the PC's lifetime.
For using settings in the taskbar Mod, I used the app UWPSpy, with which you can see what to change how. It has some similarity to CSS files for changing UI of sites, with which I have a lot of experience. So for me, it was not a big problem to use that UWPSpy app. But you do not need to use it, it's an extra to change things that are not specified elsewhere.
That ends my description of Windhawk, with which I hope I helped you!
