XP cool theme Tools and modifications complete Raiders

Strategy

Windows XP employs a completely new theme management kernel, its function is very powerful, can achieve the effect is very dazzling, but actually does not support unofficial desktop theme, Plus! Few simple topics in a few days to look bored, so, want to use the third party's theme, must through unofficial solution.

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 reinforces many features to import, select, replace, and manage official and unofficial desktop themes, wallpapers, and even landing interfaces. After the software is installed in XP to add a background running Services StyleXP service, occupy 1-2MB of memory, this service is able to use the Third-party theme of the basic. In addition, its main program can choose two ways to run, one is to keep running in the system tray, this mode in the system tray has a stylexp icon, at any time you can click the main interface; one is not consuming resources, the main program does not normally run. Suggest you choose the second way, because this main program can not be delicate, occupy memory to 10-20MB. In fact, the second way you can run the main program at any time to manage the topic.

Style XP is shareware, with its own Chinese language, officially supported by the Windows XP sp1,1.01p version after the 1.01L version to start supporting Windows 2003.

2. UxTheme.dll cracked version

UxTheme.dll is the core file supported by the XP system theme, which is that it makes XP unusable with Third-party themes. If you don't want to install STYLEXP, you can do so by cracking UxTheme.dll files. In fact, UxTheme.dll cracked version is the introduction of StyleXP TGT Soft in the fans of the strong requirements of the delegation out, Microsoft seems to default this behavior, hehe, is really rare. With UxTheme.dll cracked version, you can manage and invoke third party themes and styles in XP display properties without any other software.

Download UxTheme.dll cracked version, the first X:\Windows\System32\UxTheme.dll renamed, such as UxTheme.dll.bak, and then the crack version of the copy over, restart can be. Note that the system File Protection for Windows XP is also included here, see below. The above two solutions as long as the choice of one can, each has its own benefits, we look at it. The author of the use of the former, because when the stylexp to the service to occupy a very small amount of resources, 2MB or so, no need to modify system files, and manage the theme is more convenient than the display properties of Windows, but also free to replace and manage the logon interface, Do not need to cumbersome to replace the system files, and so on. If you really like to use a desktop theme, you're unlikely to care so much about the resource footprint.

Two. Composition of desktop Themes

An XP desktop theme can contain several sections, style, wallpaper, screensavers, mouse pointers, system sound events, icons, and other parts are optional except for the style that is required. Style can be defined by what you can see in Windows, such as the appearance of the window, font, color, button appearance and so on, a desktop theme

Style determines what you see in Windows.

You can open the X:\Windows\Resources\Themes directory, which is the directory where the desktop theme is stored in XP. You can see that there are a lot of xxx.theme files that you see in the "topic" List of the properties that show how many. theme files in the topic, which is the Windows theme file, a desktop theme's general definition file, and its inner

Not much, is the text format, with XP default official theme Luna as an example, we use any text editor to open the Luna.theme, you can see its content very intuitive.

The [Theme] section is an icon that defines my computer, My Documents, My Network Neighborhood, and the main parts of the Recycle Bin, and the icon for my Computer definition in Luna.theme is x:\windows\explorer.exe,0, That is, the first icon contained in the Explorer.exe, which does not contain a specific icon. This is generally the value. Over here

You can point to program files, or to DLL files or icon files.

The [Control Panel\colors] section defines colors for each of the Windows widgets, such as title bars, window backgrounds, text, and so on, and the colors defined here are mostly irrelevant because the system takes precedence over the colors in the color scheme, which is described later in this section.

[Control Panel\cursors] Defines the mouse pointer, each row defines a pointer file, such as arrow to define the arrowhead cursor, and wait to define the waiting cursor. The Luna here is empty, representing the use of the Windows default mouse pointer, where the definition must be specific. cur cursor file or. ANI animation cursor file.

[Control Panel\Desktop] defines the display of the desktop, including the location of the wallpaper picture, how it is displayed, and whether the screensaver is activated. Luna in the wallpaper=%windir%web\wallpaper\bliss.bmp is the most people see the "Vegetable blue sky."

The screensaveactive=x here corresponds to the [boot] section of the scrnsave.exe=xxx, which allows screensavers, which is the specific address of the screensaver.

[VisualStyles] is the most critical part, and here is the core of a desktop theme:. msstyles visual appearance style file, Luna Middle finger is path=%windir%resources\themes\luna\ Luna.msstyles, I'll talk about it later.

Further down is the definition of the sound event, and we are in the control Panel → sound and audio devices → Sound in the project is the same.

Generally speaking, a complete topic basic file structure is a. theme file and a folder for other files, such as a style file, where the name of the folder can be found in the [VisualStyles] section. Once you understand the structure of the. theme file, you'll be able to edit it as you like, just to make sure all the files are pointing to a valid point, otherwise the theme won't work.

It is important to note that the. theme file is not required. msstyles style file is. Therefore, some topics have only. msstyles files, No. theme files, as usual. is not visible in the list of topics that display properties, and must be visible in appearance.

Below, we open the Luna folder again according to the path in [VisualStyles], and now we can see the luna.msstyles style file ... Msstyles is the main part of a desktop theme, Its content generally contains almost all of the things you see in Windows, including Windows, toolbars, buttons, and so on colors, background patterns, stereo effects, fonts and so on, it can basically determine the effect of a theme. Interested friends can use the Stylebuilder this is also by the TGT Soft the specialized editing style document the tool opens to look. To understand the important role of msstyles. That's why there are so many themes that only this one file can achieve extraordinary results. It's important here that. msstyles files can only be placed in subdirectories of the X:\Windows\Resources\Themes directory, and the subdirectory name must be the same as its own file name (excluding the suffix name), for example Luna.msstyles Must be placed under the X:\Windows\Resources\Themes\Luna to be effective, you can try the directory or file one of the renamed, you will find that the style has not been used properly.

Most of the topic directories will also have a shell directory, here or the official theme Luna as an example, and luna.msstyles together there is a shell directory, open the shell directory can see three subdirectories, respectively, Homestead, NormalColor , metallic, exactly corresponds to the Luna theme of the three color scheme: Olive green, the default (blue), silver. Three directories each below has a Shellstyle.dll file. The Shellstyle.dll function is simple, which defines the style of the public bar on the left side of the explorer, including bitmaps, fonts, and color configurations, such as turning off and opening the Details button, and the note patterns displayed in the background of the lower-right corner of the file list when you open the Music folder. A general theme of a few color scheme will have several shellstyle.dll files, each shellstyle.dll content is to match the color scheme, different.

Like the. theme file, Shell folders and Shellstyle.dll are not required, and many topics do not have this content. Even deleting an existing shellstyle.dll will not have much impact on the theme, except that what it defines in the color scheme becomes the default for the system. We can all try to use other colors in a color scheme.

Scheme of Shellstyle.dll file replacement, can even use their own tools such as Resource Hacker edit the bitmap and color, font definition, and sometimes can achieve unexpected results.

Three. Use of desktop themes

The basic file structure of the topic has been described above, and it is much easier to talk about installation topics after you have understood the file structure. There are a variety of desktop topics downloaded from the Web, some only hundreds of KB, and some may have dozens of MB, because they contain different content. There's only one. Msstyles style files, some with a few color profiles, some with a. theme files, some with mouse pointers, wallpaper, sound events, and so on, the author even saw a contains all content compression after all have hundreds MB of Mega desktop theme.

Let's talk about how to install different topics.

Give you a little hint, under normal circumstances. theme files and. msstyles files are associated with a system default file, which means that double-clicking both file systems automatically opens in the Display property, which you can use to preview the theme or style before you install it, of course, Note Other documents if the topic also expands other files

The path is not correct, otherwise it will not preview correctly.

The first case: there are. Theme Theme Files

This is the easiest thing to install, as long as the directory structure of the original theme is maintained, the. theme files and folders are copied to the X:\Windows\Resources\Themes\ directory to complete the installation. For the simplest example, everyone downloads a topic on the Internet, assuming the topic is called "Naco," then the directory structure should be after installation:

X:\Windows\Resources\Themes\Naco.theme (not available)

X:\Windows\Resources\Themes\Naco\Naco.msstyles

X:\Windows\Resources\Themes\Naco\Shell\xxxx\shellstyle.dll (not available)

.....................

After you copy it, right-click on the desktop and select Properties to open the Display Properties window. Because there is a. theme theme file, you can see the topic in the topic list, select the topic name, click Apply, and Windows will automatically switch to the display of the topic. If this theme has multiple color schemes, open "appearance" in the "color scheme"

You can see the optional color scheme in the list, and each item will show the actual effect in the preview box above.

Second case: No. Theme Theme Files

Or This example, assuming the theme is "Naco", this topic has only one naco.msstyles style file and a shell folder, Shell folder has several sets of color scheme, or even shell folders are not, then first of all, please in X:\Windows\ Resources\themes directory to build a subdirectory, the name must be called "Naco", said previously, the name of this directory must be the same as the style file name, and then copy the Naco.msstyles file and the Shell directory into this subdirectory, the directory structure is this:

X:\Windows\Resources\Themes\Naco\Naco.msstyles

X:\Windows\Resources\Themes\Naco\Shell\xxxx\shellstyle.dll (not available)

.................

Open the Display Properties window. Because there is no. theme file, you can't see the "Naco" theme in the topic list, so go to the Appearance page, and you should be able to find "Naco" in the "Windows and Buttons" list, which is actually a list of styles. Check "Naco", if this style has more than one color scheme, then in the following color scheme list will have more than a content, select each item will be in the preview box above shows the actual effect. Click on the application at the bottom right to be able to apply the style and color scheme to the current windows.

I've already talked about it before. Theme is a total definition file and its structure, so you can create a. theme file to target a topic that does not have a. theme file.

In the Appearance window and button, select a style without a theme file, click Apply, at which time windows will switch to the new specified style, switch to the theme page, the topic list will appear as XXX (change), click "Save as" to save the new. theme file to X:\ Windows\resources\themes\ directory, of course you can also save to any location, just save to the system directory will be more manageable. Once you've saved it, you've created a new theme, and you can use the style as soon as you choose this new theme.

There's a trick here, as you can see in the second section, there are many definitions in the. theme file, so you save the. theme file by saving the various definitions of the current system's wallpaper, mouse pointers, icons, screensavers, sounds, and so on, to the middle of the new theme file. You can simply use this technique to create your own personalized theme without having to manually edit the definitions of the theme file. For example, you can first set your desktop wallpaper as your favorite picture, pull up their favorite mouse pointer, using their favorite sound events and screen protection and so on, and so on, the various parts of the adjustment, "Save as" a new theme files, so that, as long as the theme of the selection of documents can be one-step. ;) Of course, it's important to note that when you save a theme file, all resources will use an absolute path, such as the reference location of the mouse pointer and sound file from another topic's directory, so once the actual position of a file has changed, Then when you use this topic, Windows will be unable to find the file in the topic and prompted error, so the best way is to create a directory that is not easy to change the need to use the file, and then create a theme file, it is not easy to error.

Four. Extension of Desktop theme application: Icon

Friends who use more topics will find that many desktop topics contain content other than Windows themes, such as many beautiful sets of icons, but no matter how you switch themes you never see the icons appear in the system (except for a few that can be defined in the. theme file). In fact, this is because the Windows theme does not support the use of icon themes. And these sets of icon set, are generally used to use another software. Here, you should recommend a more widely used icon theme software: IconPackager.

The most common of theme that are now published with an icon theme is the IconPackager icon theme. IconPackager is a set of icon management, icon conversion, icon theme production as a powerful Windows icon theme tool, from the software name knows, its biggest function is the application of the icon package. Many of the XP desktop theme packs are included in the icon set will be added to the IconPackager icon theme definition file, can be opened with IconPackager, very convenient to replace all the icons at once. This substitution has no effect on the system, but is actually replaced in the Windows icon cache and can be recovered at any time. Here's a quick introduction to IconPackager and the usage of its icon theme. For convenience, hereinafter referred to as IconPackager IP.

Let's make a noun to explain:

. icl file: The abbreviation for Icon Library, a 16-bit Windows DLL library file that uses icon editing software (such as Microangelo), except that the suffix name is different and is used exclusively for the packaging of icons, with nothing but icons in it. The advantage is that a large number of icons can be compressed into a file for easy use and communication, and you do not need to unpack to directly use the inside of the icon. This icon library format is supported by Windows XP by default. There are two ways to publish an icon theme in IP format, the first and most common way is the icon +. Iptheme definition file, in this form, the icon theme is generally in a separate directory, the icon may be a lot of. ico files, or it may be a single. ICL (explained above) icon library file , and one of the most important. iptheme files. I have to make another noun explanation.

. Iptheme is an IP-specific icon theme definition file, as the 2nd section says. Theme theme files are also text formats that can be opened with any text editor, and its contents are understood. [Software Info] is a description of the IP software, regardless of it, the following [Package info] is the definition of the content of the icon, for example: my computer=%themedir%02.ico means "My Computer" icon is defined as the icon theme directory 02.ico file, preceded by the location of a display icon in the system, followed by a specific icon file. It may also be: my computer=%themedir%01.icl,1, this definition points to a. ICL icon library file, followed by the number 1 of the comma is the icon library file in the first icon.

If you have IP installed in your system, just double-click the. iptheme file IP will automatically start and then open the icon theme, and then click on the left side of the IP window "Icons & Cursors", you can see the icon on the right side of the theme defined in the various specific icons, divided into the desktop, Start menu , folder, drive, other, file type, mouse pointer, quick Launch bar, etc. eight classes, basically covers all the icons in Windows, even many Third-party software file format found. For an unsatisfactory icon, double-click the icon item to change, or select the icon item and click on the right button ..., find the icon you want to confirm will be loaded in the IP. Click on the lower right to apply the current icon theme, wait a few seconds the system's icon to replace the theme of the completed. The number of icons that are replaced is determined by the number of icons included in the icon theme, and if the icon theme icon type is full, the icons in the entire system will become recognizable to you. Note that the icon definition in IP is an absolute path, which means that the icon defined in IP is not available in IP once the. ico file or the. icl file is moved.

Another topic for IP Publishing is a separate form. ip files, this file is the IP-specific format of the icon compression package, which includes the icon in the theme of the icon file and IP icon theme definition files, with other software is not open, use and. Theme, just double-click will be loaded in IP, But IP will first unzip this compressed package to its own

Themes directory in the installation directory to reload, the original. ip file location does not affect the use of the icon theme. In addition, the IP icon theme can include the mouse pointer, which is defined in the same way as the icon. Everyone to find a more complete IP icon theme study the definition file to understand.

This tutorial is only about the application of the icon theme, as for other functions and applications of IP, we can study, in short, IP is a powerful and useful icon tool, but it is not difficult to use. Use it to make a theme for your own icon, to distribute it to your friends, to guarantee the pants. A good desktop theme plus a set of good icon theme, can definitely make the whole system a brand-new.

Five. Extension of Desktop theme application

Modification of System files:

With the above four steps, I believe that everyone's Windows has a bit of people do not recognize it, the following is to say a further application: Modify system files, Windows become unlike Windows.

There are actually a lot of UI that is saved in some executable file (. exe. dll. OCX, etc.), such as button icon, animation, menu text, Program and dialog box layout, etc., editing these files can let you arbitrarily change your windowsx as an interface, it is not as difficult as it seems. Backup! Since it is a system file, I believe we do not dare to delete, so we must do a good job of backup, but also should clearly indicate the location of the document. Once the modification fails, start to Dos immediately and restore the backup file. Then there is, a good habit is to change a file, backup, cover, restart, test, and then change the next, the most bogey is to change a pile of files, while covering, the results of the problem, but do not know exactly which file was changed. Keep in mind: Before editing any system files, back up!

Resource Hacker, I believe many people have known this excellent free software, the most gratifying is that it has perfect Chinese.

PE Resource Editor, also free software, and the code is public, but may require two Delphi 6 runtime (Vcl60.rar Rtl60.rar). is not inferior to resource hacker at all.

Exescope, Shareware, can edit 16-bit binary files.

Resbuilder,tgtsoft (The one who does the StyleXP) produces a powerful free software. Its homepage is described as: "with Resbuilder, Skin/logon/shellstyle designers have a simple way to alter Alpha mask bitmaps in a resource file." Resbuilder auto-converts bit BMPs to PNGs and then you can edit the 8 bit alpha mask in your favorite. Good for LogonUI.EXE files. Also has a text and hex editor. ". In addition, it can edit the. Xml. INI, which is integrated into the executable file, is very attractive.

Hex Editor, since there are ultraedit, I will not say anything else;

File replacement

We know that when a file is in use it cannot be replaced, and most of the system files on the UI are enabled at startup, which can be a problem for us to replace the system files, and the following two software helps us.

Copylock,windows 9x/2k, freeware, "is a small programs that allows the replacement of one or many files, are (e.g. the system files like Comctl32.dll.) "

Replacer,windows 2k/xp, free software, "is a easy to use System file exchanger for XP/2K. It uses a drag and drop interface to obtain input. "

Other:

Resthief, freeware, when you drag an executable or other binary file onto it, it expands all of its resource files into a directory.

SmartView, freeware, "is a-free Windows programs that allows for you to select a directory and you can view all the bitmaps, metafile s, icons and icons held in executables as thumbnails. "

Modify introduction 16-bit and 32-bit files

Several of the resource editors mentioned above can modify 32-bit files, but we still run into 16-bit files (especially in the Windows 9x system), which is only used for exescope.

Edit file:

The usual method is simply to extract the resource files (bitmaps, animations, etc.) from the file, edit them, and replace them in the file. or modify the layout of the dialog box, modify the text in the file, etc., can be in the editor simple x can be done. Editing tools for bitmaps (. bmp. ico, etc.), animations (. avi, and so on) can be used in their own use. Note that the file size of the modified resource file, the color index, the specification of the transparent color, and so on, is a better way to edit the original resource file.

Usually, the transparent color is purplish red (r,g,b:255,0,255), but sometimes it is in the background color of the bitmap. Often encounter a bitmap file contains a number of different functions of the button diagram, and in the other diagram may have a corresponding mouse hover and mouse down the picture, a better way is to edit the original image. For XP, we'll see a lot of bitmaps that have alpha effects (such as the buttons in the Explorer toolbar), an effective way to do this is when you extract files from the resource editor, Immediately renamed. PNG (originally. bmp), then use software such as Photoshop to save, then open with MS Paint and save as. bmp. (Note: This method has not been tested by oneself)

The HTML edit within the. dll file!

In addition to bitmaps, dialog boxes, and so on, there are some things are saved in HTML, such as IE's "about" (Shdoclc.dll,section 23) and "Friendly HTTP error message pages" (Shdoclc.dll,section 2110). Resource Hacker can easily edit this, edit and click "Compile script" on it. However, it is not suitable to use resource Hacker in the case of Gif/.jpg, which is referenced in the substitution HTML, but exescope can be competent and pleasant. In addition, you can completely replace any. gif with an. gif animation.