How to make themes work (uxtheme.dll)?

[Lars Christoffersen]

Hi all

I've downloaded a lot of themes and wanted to make them work. Apparently
they are made in a 3.party program, so windows xp won't integrate them. The
startmenu and dialog boxes are kept in the old windows style (only
background and icons are changed).

I've been told that I should patch the uxtheme.dll file. I've tried that
with 3 different patches, but they seem not to work on my version.
Does anyone have a clue how to patch this file??

I'm running a Danish version of windows xp pro.

Regards

/thomsen
PS. sorry for the poor english, but that's not my primary language........

 

[Brad Wardell]

Hi all

I've downloaded a lot of themes and wanted to make them work. Apparently
they are made in a 3.party program, so windows xp won't integrate them. The
startmenu and dialog boxes are kept in the old windows style (only
background and icons are changed).

I've been told that I should patch the uxtheme.dll file. I've tried that
with 3 different patches, but they seem not to work on my version.
Does anyone have a clue how to patch this file??

I'm running a Danish version of windows xp pro.

There are basically 3 ways to do that:

1) Patch your uxtheme.dll with an auto patcher.

2) Patch your uxtheme.dll with a program that does it in memory

3) Import your .msstyles into a format that doesn't require uxtheme to do
the skinning.

Go here to get links to those various options:

http://www.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=1855

Kind regards,

Brad

 

[Keith Miller]

There are different versions of the patch for pre & post SP1. Are you sure you've successfully
installed the patched file? You need to examine the dates on the downloaded file v.s. the one in
your system32 directory.

I don't use the utilities out there - I replace it manually.

You first need to find out where the 'backup' copies are & rename those first (I just add a .bak
extension to it). Usually "C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386" for post-SP1 and
"C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache" for pre-SP1, but do a search to make sure. Ignore the warning
messages that the system throws up.

Then add an extra extension to the downloaded patch & copy it to your system32 directory. Then
rename the uxtheme.dll file that's already there. Then rename your downloaded patch back to
"uxtheme.dll".

Keith

 

[Lars Christoffersen]

I don't use the utilities out there - I replace it manually.

I've tried the utilities, and they don't seem to work, so now I would like
to try and replace it manually.

I've searched high and low, and didn't find any uxtheme.dll file that could
do the trick.
Any Idea where to find this file (post sp1)???

/Thomsen

 

[Keith Miller]

I downloaded this:

http://www.lightstar1.com/install/PatchXP-SP1.zip

The zip folder contains an installer & the uxtheme.dll file. I ignored the installer & just used
the file.

Keith