Can't apply themes ... fully

[Sophie Adams]

For a very long time, I had themes in WinXP disabled--to the point that
the Themes service was disabled. Now, I would like to try using a
theme, but it isn't working for some reason.

I've set the Themes service back to Automatic, and it's running. Under
System Properties > Advanced > Performance, it is set to "Adjust for
best appearance". And of course, I've gone into the Display applet and
selected a theme.

But what happens, with any standard theme I try to apply, is that the
fonts all change, the window metrics (i.e. title bar/caption button,
etc.) change, and the colors change, but the actual underlying look of
title bars and buttons doesn't change. In other words, I could have
made the same changes manually, by changing the metrics and colors by
hand. The title bars and buttons still have the Windows Classic
appearance.

Any ideas?

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

Try navigating to:

'C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes\Luna'

and double-clicking on the 'luna.msstyles' file. This should launch the Display dialog. Click 'OK'
and see if that applies the XP style to the various window components.