XP Themes Vanished or Visual Styles?

[User 12567]

Hello Group,

After doing some maintenance on my computer, simply removing old unused
programs through the "add / remove programs" option in 'control panel', I
lost my ability to have any XP based theme. While I was doing the cleanup a
few programs asked me to restart or continue, I selected continue until I
was done removing all of the programs that I no longer needed or used...
Once I did restart it came back up and everything runs great, but... No XP
look...

It is not the properties of the start menu, they are not set to classic, and
the layout is kind of like XP but it looks more like 98 or 2000 (maybe NT).
So I figured no problem, I will go and check display properties and change
the theme to XP... Well that would have worked perhaps but XP them is not
an option, there are only 3 options, Current, Classic and Browse. It never
was like that before, I used to have an XP option... At any rate I searched
my computer locally for Themes and found an old saved XP theme, some
different colors and such, tried to apply that one and it told me that the
theme service on the local machine needed to be restarted, I attempted to do
this and it says that it can not be stopped... After this is done I get an
error message that says the visual style could not be applied...

What the heck happened?

How do I fix it?

I am running WinXP Professional SP1 on a P4 2.53 ghz with 1.0 Gig Ram...

On a side note it appears that everything runs just great, I even believe
everything is much faster this way but it is UGLY...

Can anyone help? Searched MS help online and DB and nothing seems to
address my exact issue...

Thanks

User

 

[Nepatsfan]

Hello Group,

After doing some maintenance on my computer, simply removing
old unused programs through the "add / remove programs"
option in 'control panel', I lost my ability to have any XP
based theme. While I was doing the cleanup a few programs
asked me to restart or continue, I selected continue until I
was done removing all of the programs that I no longer
needed or used... Once I did restart it came back up and
everything runs great, but... No XP look...
It is not the properties of the start menu, they are not set
to classic, and the layout is kind of like XP but it looks
more like 98 or 2000 (maybe NT). So I figured no problem, I
will go and check display properties and change the theme to
XP... Well that would have worked perhaps but XP them is
not an option, there are only 3 options, Current, Classic
and Browse. It never was like that before, I used to have
an XP option... At any rate I searched my computer locally
for Themes and found an old saved XP theme, some different
colors and such, tried to apply that one and it told me that
the theme service on the local machine needed to be
restarted, I attempted to do this and it says that it can
not be stopped... After this is done I get an error message
that says the visual style could not be applied...
What the heck happened?

How do I fix it?

I am running WinXP Professional SP1 on a P4 2.53 ghz with
1.0 Gig Ram...
On a side note it appears that everything runs just great, I
even believe everything is much faster this way but it is
UGLY...
Can anyone help? Searched MS help online and DB and nothing
seems to address my exact issue...

Thanks

User

You might want to go to this web site:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_t.htm

Scroll down to this section:

Themes (Won't Load or only Windows Classic is listed)

Nepatsfan

 

[User 12567]

You might want to go to this web site:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_t.htm

Scroll down to this section:

Themes (Won't Load or only Windows Classic is listed)

Nepatsfan

Ty, I did try that, even used the restore Luna theme registry fix and it did
nothing for it, tried it again then restarted to see if maybe a load and
fresh boot would work, then I tried to do the registry theme restore in safe
mode as admin and reboot... still won't come back...

I will keep trying,
thanks

 

[User 12567]

You might want to go to this web site:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_t.htm

Scroll down to this section:

Themes (Won't Load or only Windows Classic is listed)

Nepatsfan

Well now I looked at the files that were in Windows\Resources\themes and did
see some differences between my laptop and the computer in question, there
were a few somefolders with various files... I transferred over the themes
folder and copied the new ones, the ones I know work into the problem
comp...

No change, still tells me theme service is not running, I go to services and
it says it is running, when I try to restart it, it says it cannot not
stop...

mess with this for a bit and then I guess it is ugly themes from here on
out...

thanks again...

 

[Nepatsfan]

Well now I looked at the files that were in

Windows\Resources\themes and did see some differences
between my laptop and the computer in question, there were a
few somefolders with various files... I transferred over the
themes folder and copied the new ones, the ones I know work
into the problem comp...
No change, still tells me theme service is not running, I go
to services and it says it is running, when I try to restart
it, it says it cannot not stop...

mess with this for a bit and then I guess it is ugly themes
from here on out...

thanks again...

I'm out of quick fixes. It looks as if the problem isn't with
the themes file, it's with the themes service. I've never come
across a situation where an administrator account couldn't
start and stop services. Since I can't duplicate your problem,
I'm stumped. Here are the only things I can think of trying:

Have you tried logging on with a different user account to see
if the problems still exists?

Have you tried reinstalling any of the programs you removed?
I'd look at ones that could possibly have caused changes to
your registry that are related to display settings or visual
styles. You could then uninstall them but this time restart if
requested.

Have you run System File checker? It's a long shot but it's
possible one of the programs you uninstalled may have replaced
a Windows file (such as a .dll file) with it's own version. Not
restarting after uninstalling a program may have caused the
Windows file to not be restored.

As a last resort, you might want to consider running System
Restore to take your computer back to a time before you started
uninstalling programs. I'd classify this as risky solution.
You'd have to ask yourself how badly you want that visual style
back.

The final resort would be running a repair installation of XP.

If you haven't done so already, you might want to post your
question to another XP newsgroup.
Pick one or two of the following:

microsoft.public.windowsxp.customize
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support

If you post to more than one, make sure to crosspost. That will
make it easier for you to keep track of all the responses.
Include not only the symptoms but the steps you've already
taken to correct the problem.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Nepatsfan