Microsoft isn't going to get the Aero glass theme back in Windows 8 so a developer decided to take matters into his own hands and made a hack that brings back the Aero Glass theme to the Windows 8 Desktop Window Manager (DWM). The hack brings the transparency and blur effects back into Windows 8.
The developer explains how his hack works. He says:
I have developed DLL library in C++ which is injected into dwm.exe process (no system files replacement is required). Then, the functions used for window border drawing are hooked with my own implementation. This ensures that anytime DWM wants to draw the window border, the code is redirected into my library where I can change the parameters of vertex buffer, blend state and other stuff. Then I redirect back to the original drawing function. Transparent window border is drawn!
Currently, he implemented only blur effect using Direct2D. His plan is to return glow effect to the window caption and better shadow around the windows. He also asks the community to try to re-implement Flip3D functionality.
Download
Download the file and extract the .7z file with the help of 7-Zip into a "DWM" folder within the root of the drive where the operating system is installed, for example "C:\DWM" and double click on the "DWMLoader.exe" file. A command prompt window will then open, informing the user that Aero Glass is now enabled. For going back to the default Windows 8 interface, just close the command prompt window.
Source: MSFN