Windows XP uses a new theme management kernel, which is very powerful and can achieve great results, but it does not support unofficial desktop themes. The simple themes in Plus! don’t take a few days to look at, so To use a third-party theme, you must solve it through an unofficial approach.
I. Prerequisite Software
1. Style XP
Style XP is a third-party XP desktop theme support and management software, and is currently the best. It uses the Windows XP theme kernel and enhances many features to import, select, replace, and manage official and unofficial desktop themes, wallpapers, and even logins. After the software is installed, it will add a background running service StyleXP Service in XP, which takes up 1-2MB of memory. This service is also able to use the basics of third-party themes. In addition, its main program can choose two modes of operation, one is to keep running in the system tray, this mode has a StyleXP icon in the system tray, you can click to call out the main interface at any time; one is not consuming resources The way the main program does not normally run. It is recommended that you choose the second method, because this main program is not running well, taking up memory to 10-20MB. In fact, the second way can also run the main program to manage the theme at any time.
Style XP is a shareware with its own Chinese language. It officially supports Windows XP SP1 after the 1.01L version, and the 1.01P version supports Windows 2003.
2. UxTheme.dll cracked version
UxTheme.dll system is XP theme support core files, that is, it makes XP can not use third-party themes. If you don't want to install StyleXP, you can do this by cracking the UxTheme.dll file. In fact, the cracked version of UxTheme.dll is the launch of StyleXP's TGT Soft, which is released under the strong request of fans. Microsoft seems to have this behavior by default. Oh, it is rare. After using UxTheme.dll cracked version, you can manage and invoke third-party themes and styles in XP's display properties without any additional software.
After downloading the cracked version of UxTheme.dll, first rename X:\\Windows\\System32\\UxTheme.dll, for example, change to UxTheme.dll.bak, then copy the cracked version and restart it. . Note that system file protection for Windows XP is also involved here, see below. As long as you can choose one of the above two solutions, each has its own advantages. The author personally uses the former, because when StyleXP runs with the service, the resources are very small, about 2MB, no need to modify the system files, and the management theme is much more convenient than the Windows display properties, and can be replaced at will and Manage the Logon interface without having to cumbersomely replace system files, and so on. Really say that if you like to use the desktop theme, it is unlikely to care about such a small amount of resources.
II.
constitute an XP desktop themes desktop themes can contain several parts, style, wallpaper, screensavers, mouse pointer, sound system event, icons, style is a must in addition to the In addition, other parts are optional. Content style can be defined in Windows, all we can see, for example, the appearance of windows, fonts, colors, button appearance, etc., etc., a desktop theme in
style will determine everyone See what Windows looks like.
You can open the X:\\Windows\\Resources\\Themes directory, which is the directory where XP stores desktop themes. You can see that there are a lot of xxx.theme files. In the "Themes" list of the display properties, you can see how many .theme files are in the theme. It is the Windows theme file, a total definition file for the desktop theme. it's not much within
content, text format, the default official theme Luna XP as an example, we use any text editor to open Luna.theme, can be very intuitive to see its contents.
The [Theme] section is an icon that defines the main components of My Computer, My Documents, Network Neighborhood, and Recycle Bin. The icon defined by My Computer in Luna.theme is X:\\Windows\\explorer. Exe, 0, which is the first icon contained in explorer.exe. The subject that does not contain a specific icon is generally this value. Here
can point to the program file, or to the DLL file or icon file.
The [Control Panel\\Colors] section defines the colors of various Windows components such as title bar, window background, text, etc. The colors defined here are mostly irrelevant because the system will prioritize the color scheme. The color scheme in the display, which will be covered in the later sections.
[Control Panel\\Cursors] defines the mouse pointer. Each line defines a pointer file, such as Arrow defines the arrow cursor, and Wait defines the waiting cursor. Luna is empty here, which means that the Windows default mouse pointer is used. The definition here must be a specific .cur cursor file or an .ani animated cursor file.
[Control Panel\\Desktop] Defines the display of the desktop, including the location of the wallpaper image, how it is displayed, and whether the screen saver is activated. Wallpaper=%WinDir%web\\wallpaper\\Bliss.bmp in Luna is the "blue sky" that everyone sees most.
Here ScreenSaveActive=X and the following [boot] part SCRNSAVE.EXE=XXX are corresponding, whether the former allows screen saver, the latter is the specific address of the screen saver.
[VisualStyles] is the most critical part, here is the core part of a desktop theme: .msstyles visual appearance style file, Luna refers to Path=%WinDir%resources\\Themes\\luna\\luna .msstyles, will be mentioned later.
Going down is the definition of the sound event, and the items we set in Control Panel → Sounds and Audio Devices → Sound are the same.
general a complete file structure is the basic theme of a file and a file placed .theme style file and other files, and you can find the name of the folder in the [VisualStyles] section. After understanding the structure of the .theme file, you can edit it to your liking, just to confirm that all files must be valid, otherwise the theme cannot be used.
It should be noted that the .theme file is not required, the .msstyles style file is. Therefore, some themes only have .msstyles files, and no .theme files can be used as usual. It is only invisible in the list of topics that display properties, and must be visible in the "look".
Next, according to the path in [VisualStyles], we open the Luna folder again, and now we can see the luna.msstyles style file. .msstyles is the main part of a desktop theme, and its content generally contains everything that everyone sees in Windows, including the color of windows, toolbars, buttons, etc., background graphics, stereo effects, fonts, and the like. It basically determines the effect of a theme. Interested friends can open it with StyleBuilder, a tool that is specially edited by TGT Soft. Just understand the important role of .msstyles. This is why there are a lot of themes and only this one file can achieve extraordinary results. It is important to note that the .msstyles file can only be placed in a subdirectory of the X:\\Windows\\Resources\\Themes directory, and the subdirectory name must be the same as its own file name (excluding the suffix), such as Luna. .msstyles must be placed under X:\\Windows\\Resources\\Themes\\Luna. You can try to rename one of the directories or files and you will find that the style is no longer working.
Most of the theme directories will also have a shell directory, here is the official theme Luna as an example, and Luna.msstyles with a shell directory, open the shell directory to see three subdirectories, They are Homestead, NormalColor, and Metallic, which correspond to the three color schemes in the Luna theme: olive green, default (blue), and silver. Each of the three directories has a shellstyle.dll file below it. Shellstyle.dll is a simpler function that defines the style of the public bar on the left side of the Explorer, including bitmaps, fonts, and color configurations, such as the button to close and open "details", and when everyone opens the music folder. The note pattern displayed in the background in the lower right corner of the file list. Generally, there are several color schemes in a theme, there will be several shellstyle.dll files, and the content of each shellstyle.dll is different from the color scheme targeted.
Like the .theme file, the shell folder and shellstyle.dll are not required, and many topics do not have this content. Even deleting the existing shellstyle.dll will not have much effect on the theme, except that the content defined by it will become the system default. You can try to replace the shellstyle.dll file with other color
schemes in a color scheme. You can even edit the bitmap and color, font definition, etc. yourself by using tools such as Resource Hacker. Time can achieve unexpected results.
III.
use desktop theme has been said above, the basic theme of file structure, file structure in the understanding of the topic to talk about the installation much easier. Everyone downloads a variety of desktop themes from the Internet, some are only a few hundred KB, and some may have dozens of megabytes, because they contain different content. Some have only one .msstyles style file, some have a few color profiles, some have .theme files, some have mouse pointers, wallpapers, sound events, etc. I even saw one that contains all the content compression. Then there are hundreds of megabytes of massive desktop themes.
Here to talk about how the various themes of the installation.
give you a little prompt, under normal circumstances .msstyles .theme files and file systems are all the default file association, which means that both double-click the file system automatically opens in the display properties, You can use this to preview the theme or style before installing. Of course, if the theme also includes other files, you should pay attention to whether the path of other files
is correct, otherwise it will not be previewed properly.
The first case: There is .theme theme file
This situation is the easiest to install, just keep the original theme of the directory structure, copy the .theme file and folder to X The installation is done in the \\Windows\\Resources\\Themes\\ directory. For the simplest example, you downloaded a theme online, assuming the theme is called "Naco", then it should be such a directory structure after installation:
X:\\Windows\\Resources\\Themes\\Naco .theme (可无)
X:\\Windows\\Resources\\Themes\\Naco\\Naco.msstyles
X:\\Windows\\Resources\\Themes\\Naco\\Shell\\xxxx\\shellstyle.dll (No)
.....................
After copying, then right click on the desktop and select "Properties" "Open the display properties window. Because there is a .theme theme file, you can see the theme in the list of topics, select the theme name, click on the application, Windows will automatically switch to the display of the theme. If there are multiple color schemes for this theme, open "Appearance" in "Color Scheme"