Classic Shell: Forum

The add icon overlay for shared folders (and drives) is great, but, it would be really nice if there was an option to disable it for hidden shares (share names that end with $)

Where does it show for hidden shares? Can you please show a screenshot? Hidden shares themselves don't show in Explorer so how can the overlay icon be showing?

Edit: Okay I see what you mean, I know about hidden shares, just didn't get what you were saying earlier. Yeah if it's possible to check the share name for whether it contains a $ sign, then it may be possible. Only Ivo can know this one since he's the developer.

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I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

I'm talking about the overlay icon on the folders/drives I'm sharing, not the ones being shared to me.

For example, if I share D:\www as "www", it's gonna get the overlay icon.

But, if I share is as "www$" (hidden share) I would like the www folder not the have the overlay icon.

More about hidden shares:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administr ... cteristics
- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314984

To make a folder hidden, you just need to add a dollar sign a the end of the share name.

Those are the kind of folders for which I would prefer not to have an overlay icon (if possible). Same goes for drives, if I share a drive as "driveD$" I would prefer not to have the overlay icon.

But I would still like to see the overlay icon for non-hidden folder/drive shares, hence my feature request.

I don't know if it is possible to get the share name quickly. I have added it to my list to investigate for a future version.

@DeeLight, you will be DeeLighted to know that Classic Shell 4.0.5 added a new setting in Classic Explorer to not show the share overlay icon for hidden shares.

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Links to some general topics:

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I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

Somehow I missed it, but I just upgraded today...

Unfortunately, although it seems to work perfectly for shared folders, it doesn't seem to work for shared drives. I'm currently sharing my D: drive as 'workspace$' but the overlay icon is still showing.

I'm not sure if this is a problem with Windows or Classic Shell tho. The main option is called "Add icon overlay for shared folders" and that's what it seems to be doing. Even if I disable this feature, the 'share icon' overlay is still showing on shared drives.

If it's possible to hide the overlay icon on shared drives, Classic Shell would need to change the current option to "Add icon overlay for shared locations" or "Add icon overlay for shared folders and drives" and this option would need to affect shared folders as well as shared drives.

But, if icon overlay for shared drives should be handled differently from folders, maybe a new section called "Add icon overlay for shared drives" should be added (which would be on by default, judging by the default windows behavior) and that could be turned off to hide the icons.

If the icon shows up even when the option is disabled, then most likely it is not shown by Classic Shell. You can try changing the icon and see if both the folders and drives change at the same time. If only the folders change, then the drives are handled by another extension, probably Windows itself.

Just did some tests.

Changed the icon from the default (%windir%\system32\imageres.dll,164) to %windir%\system32\imageres.dll,157 (a green checkbox)

This is how it looks:

Right. So the first icon in the first image is not shown by Classic Shell. You can confirm that by uninstalling it temporarily, then log off.

Exacly... but because if it's checked the overlay changes, it should be possible to change the drive share overlay or hide it (maybe using an empty icon, like shell32.dll,50) with Classic Shell if the option to do so was implemented?

This is what I tried to request (maybe not very clearly) with the last 2 paragraphs of my first post today

I don't think an extension can remove an icon, only add one. You will have to find the location that adds the icon and disable it from the registry somehow.

Maybe I wasn't clear, but I meant to say that it should be possible to use an empty icon as overlay (shell32.dll,50 was the example I gave) to hide the overlay icon.

It's already possible (but it hides the overlay for both, folder & drive) if I change the icon in "Share overlay icon: %windir%\system32\shell32.dll,50"

This causes all overlay icons for shared folder and shared drives to disappear (by basically overlaying an empty/transparent icon over the folder or drive)

There are three problems with that:
1) The extension will require 2 icons, and they are a VERY limited system resource - 15 for the entire Windows.
2) If another extension changes the icon to something else, mine will clear it (which is what you are proposing), however I have no way of knowing what icon I'm clearing. It may be something the user actually wants to see
3) This will only work if my extension has priority over the other. And you have no control over the priorities. They are basically arbitrary

So basically it won't be reliable (#3), it will be expensive (#1) and it may have undesired side effects (#2).

As I said, your best bet is to find the extension that does this and disable it. you will even free one icon for other extensions to use.

Can't really argue with that, especially #1... the 15 overlay icons limit is just plain stupid.

I guess I'll just have to keep Share overlay icon as %windir%\system32\shell32.dll,50 and keep all the overlays hidden (drives and folders) like I was currently doing

And btw, the current overlay on the shared drive is default windows behavior and not an extension. Just tested in a fresh Win7 VM to be sure.

I guess I'll have to give up on that idea (at least for now)
Thanks for your time!

Hmm, was just looking again at the image I posted...

And when the "show hidden shares" in unchecked, the hidden drive share still uses the default windows icon (so there are 2 different icons already used). When I set an icon in Classic Shell under "Share overlay icon" does that set HLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIcon‌​OverlayIdentifiers\ShareOverlay ? If so, it means windows uses imageres.dll,164 as overlay on shared drives regardless of what ShareOverlay is set to...

Maybe I could just use an icon editor to export the icon (imageres.dll,164), clear it so it's empty and doesn't show on drives, and use the exported icon in Classic Shell, which would then show only on non-hidden shares (drives and folders). I guess I have more testing to do.