XP Themes Question

[Slayer of Hippies]

I just spent the better part of an hour googling for a black xp theme. I came across lots of great malware sites (themexp, xpthemes) and badly made anime themes with sound effects for every window maximize command. It seems like something so basic should be virtually at the top of the google queue, but practically everything I find is either buried in a mound of horrendously bad themes or extracts with a wrapper with who-knows-what in it.

I'm sure there's a great site out there with all sorts of previews and non-wrappered themes to choose from, but I'm missing it. Do any of you know where it's located?

Thanks for your time.

[flux]

I'm using the Zune theme put out by MS. Download is at the bottom middle of the page.

Update: I posted a screenshot of what the theme looks like here.

[CingularDuality]

Check out DeviantArt and Neowin.net for themes.

[Slayer of Hippies]

Thanks!

[Twisted_Firestarter]

Good call Cing. DeviantArt is probably the premier theme/graphcis site. Also excellent is http://www.studiotwentyeight.net/ . He does some great stuff.

[Slayer of Hippies]

Whenever I go to install Royale for instance (and in other cases too) it sets the backdrop and cursors but the windows don't change. Maybe it's because I'm running as user. I'll try that next.

EDIT: I tried installing Royale on my admin account (not Administrator) and it doesn't have entries for the title bars and taskbar and such. Weird. Maybe it's malformed? I even tried uninstalling and reinstalling to a new second directory which confused the installer's repair options. What a mess. Should themes be this difficult to install?

. . .

Also, I noticed the disclaimers on these things are kind of disconcerting. Read some of this stuff from Zune:

Originally Posted by Zune

4. INTERNET-BASED SERVICES. Microsoft provides Internet-based services with the software. It may change or cancel them at any time.

a. Consent for Internet-Based Services. The software features described below connect to Microsoft or service provider computer systems over the Internet. In some cases, you will not receive a separate notice when they connect....

• Computer Information. The following features use Internet protocols, which send to the appropriate systems computer information, such as your Internet protocol address, the type of operating system, PID, browser, and name and version of the software you are using, and the language code of the device where you installed the software. Microsoft uses this information to make the Internet-based services available to you.

...

• Installation Information. To comply with certain licensing obligations, we collect computer information, as well as whether you installed this software from a CD or the Internet, and whether it was a new or upgrade installation. We report this information to designated third parties, but not in a manner that identifies you.

• Web Content Features. Features in the software can retrieve related content from Microsoft and provide it to you. To provide the content, these features send to Microsoft the type of operating system, name and version of the software you are using, type of browser, and language code of the device where you installed the software. Examples of these features are Marketplace, metadata download, and online assistance....

[Lorian]

Search for Royale Noir (I think that's it), it's an official Microsoft theme that was never officially released.

[Twisted_Firestarter]

Have you either installed a theme manager or patched the windows theme assembly with UXTheme multi-patcher? Before you can see changes to how windows look you need to do so, otherwise all you can change are colors.

[CingularDuality]

Yeah, what Twisted said. I've got a decent step by step write up here: http://www.tacticalgamer.com/hardwar...ppearance.html

[Slayer of Hippies]

Thanks again. I'll look into it.

EDIT: Why the hell did I have to patch a link library to make this work...

[CingularDuality]

Originally Posted by Slayer of Hippies

Why the hell did I have to patch a link library to make this work...

That's explained quite clearly in my write-up!

[Slayer of Hippies]

Yeah, that was mostly a "Why the hell does <expletive> Windows <expletive> block legitimate content <expletive> <expletive> <expletive>..." rather than an actual question.