Windows 7 (classic theme): Title flashes with custom menubar enabled

[Thunraz]

When window.titleBarStyle is set to custom there is a brief flash of the native title bar when switching between files. This behavior also happens for me in the current Insiders build, but didn't occur in v1.25.1.

• VSCode Version: Code 1.26.0 (4e93618, 2018-08-13T16:29:31.933Z)
• OS Version: Windows 7 Professional SP1 (Windows_NT x64 6.1.7601)

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Switch between open files

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

[bpasero]

@Thunraz are you using some custom window manager or theming program?

[Thunraz]

@bpasero no, just regular Windows.

Edit: to compare with the expected behavior, I've installed 1.25.1 again:

[bpasero]

@Thunraz interesting, and in 1.25 you are also using the custom title bar style right?

In that case I suspect an issue with the Electron update.

Can you just try with a very new version of VSCode (make sure to set title bar to custom again): https://az764295.vo.msecnd.net/exploration/57d01751b88c89046b33be3f1d55f860041fd27b/VSCode-win32-x64-1.27.0-exploration.zip

[Thunraz]

@bpasero Yes, in 1.25 I was also using custom title bar style (I've updated my comment above with a GIF showing the expected behavior).

Unfortunately, the Exploration version of VSCode shows the same behavior:

I've just done another test since I'm using the "classic" Windows theme (i.e. Windows 9x/2000 window styles). When using the "modern" theme, there's no native title bar flash:

[bpasero]

@Thunraz yeah so it is indeed related to changing a theme in Windows 7 it seems.

[vscodebot]

This issue has been closed automatically because it needs more information and has not had recent activity. See also our issue reporting guidelines.

Happy Coding!

[Thunraz]

Is there any more information I could provide?

[bpasero]

At this time no, I fear I have no workaround currently other than not using that windows theme.

[kanlukasz]

I have the same problem.
Windows 7 Classic Theme (no areo)
Fresh install 1.31.1

[kanlukasz]

Temporary solution:

Change Title Bar Style to native

[anikolaev]

@kanlukasz Thanks for workaround but in this mode 'Alt' keypress doesn't activate the menu bar. Light menu bar doesn't look good with dark themes. Vertical space is wasted.

I wish it could be fixed. That's is one of the reasons I don't use VS Code.

[mtsh1000]

There is also another side effect of this glitch, that the window title bar stays on top of developer tools menu bar.

[bpasero]

We are building exploration builds that use a much newer version of our UI framework (Electron version 6.0.x). I wonder if this issue reproduces with one of these builds, could you try? Download:

• macOS: Download
• Linux (DEB): Download
• Linux (RPM): Download
• Windows: Download

[Thunraz]

Unfortunately the issue persists with the exploration build.

[bpasero]

@sbatten moving forward you need to come up with a standalone reproducible sample and file this to Electron if we want a fix. I think leaving this issue dormant without this action we can equally just close this as wontfix.

[sbatten]

I'll try with Electron Fiddle in a Win7 VM. Assigned to October just for getting a repro and upstream bug.

[mtsh1000]

This seems to be related to that Win 7 basic theme uses GDI for drawing while aero theme and all later windows versions use DirectX.

[sbatten]

After quite a bit of playing around, the culprit is outlined in the upstream bug linked above. The good news is, there is another workaround that one can use if you don't really care about so much state in the window title.

Workaround:
Set the setting window.title to something static like ${appName} or ${appName} - ${folderName}. This will stop the title from being updated on editor changes and prevent the bug from surfacing.

[sbatten]

Redirecting to @deepak1556 to retriage this since upstream has no traction

[gabrielsclima]

Can still reproduce on my VsCode too, but the workaround fixed the issue.
I have a doubt: Can you tell me which Electron version VsCode is currently using?
Edit: alredy found it

[deepak1556]

Windows 7 is no longer supported by VSCode, you can read more about it at https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_can-i-run-vs-code-on-windows-7