How to remove OE and IE skins the Windows way?

[123Jim]

Hi all,
a friend has a Packard Bell computer. It has the ugly purple skin installed
which makes toolbars in Internet explorer and Outlook Express, look , er
awful and make the text harder to read. I looked at it and thought "oh yeah
no problem I'll just get rid of that awful purple skin.". Well I could not
find any options to allow the removal of this skin! Crazy! ... How? Who?

I found a program from Packard Bell which apparently removes the plug ugly
purple skin here:
http://support.packardbell.com/uk/item/index.php?i=6923040000#show

So clearly I'm not alone. But what perplexes me is Microsoft have allowed
this 'wonderful' skinning feature, but they don't seem to have any help
files on how to 1 - install skins, and 2 remove the damn thing.

I have no reason to believe that the Packard Bell skin remover wont work but
does anyone know what the windows way of managing these skins is?

 

[Bruce Hagen]

MS didn't create this third party app, so why would you expect them to help?
MS /allows/ Norton, McAfee, Avast, AVG etc. as anti-virus programs, but they
don't offer support for those programs, or how to remove them.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

Never heard of it.

 

[123Jim]

MS didn't create this third party app, so why would you expect them to
help? MS /allows/ Norton, McAfee, Avast, AVG etc. as anti-virus programs,
but they don't offer support for those programs, or how to remove them.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA

Fair point, however they might at least provide an article about it on their
web site. Something along the lines of: "You may find Outlook express
toolbar is inexplicably ugly and difficult to read, well guess what .. it's
an unsupported hack, but fear not, just do ..... something ..... to be free
of this irritation"

 

[Shenan Stanley]

a friend has a Packard Bell computer. It has the ugly purple skin
installed which makes toolbars in Internet explorer and Outlook
Express, look , er awful and make the text harder to read. I looked
at it and thought "oh yeah no problem I'll just get rid of that
awful purple skin.". Well I could not find any options to allow the
removal of this skin! Crazy! ... How? Who?
I found a program from Packard Bell which apparently removes the
plug ugly purple skin here:
http://support.packardbell.com/uk/item/index.php?i=6923040000#show

So clearly I'm not alone. But what perplexes me is Microsoft have
allowed this 'wonderful' skinning feature, but they don't seem to
have any help files on how to 1 - install skins, and 2 remove the
damn thing.
I have no reason to believe that the Packard Bell skin remover wont
work but does anyone know what the windows way of managing these
skins is?

MS didn't create this third party app, so why would you expect them
to help? MS /allows/ Norton, McAfee, Avast, AVG etc. as anti-virus
programs, but they don't offer support for those programs, or how
to remove them.

Fair point, however they might at least provide an article about it
on their web site. Something along the lines of: "You may find
Outlook express toolbar is inexplicably ugly and difficult to read,
well guess what .. it's an unsupported hack, but fear not, just
do ..... something ..... to be free of this irritation"

It is not inexplicable... The explanation is that someone installed the
purple skin.

The web page you found pretty much tells you everything you need to know...
http://support.packardbell.com/uk/item/index.php?i=6923040000#show
"After downloading the file, doubleclick it in order to remove the skin.
After running this patch, you will have to restart Internet Explorer to see
the result."

Other people customize all sorts of things all the time. The original
manufacturer of these products have *no responsibility* to anyone to tell
the end-consumer how they can undo the customizations of others. First -
they may not know it is being done. Second - even if they do know - who are
they to make the judgement call about the asthetics (if it was dongerous,
okay - but aesthetics...?)

It seems to me that those who installed the skin realized that not everyone
might enjoy their choice and provided a removal method. Technically -
you're probably lucky they decided to do that. ;-)

 

[SC Tom]

Hi all,
a friend has a Packard Bell computer. It has the ugly purple skin
installed which makes toolbars in Internet explorer and Outlook Express,
look , er awful and make the text harder to read. I looked at it and
thought "oh yeah no problem I'll just get rid of that awful purple skin.".
Well I could not find any options to allow the removal of this skin!
Crazy! ... How? Who?

I found a program from Packard Bell which apparently removes the plug ugly
purple skin here:
http://support.packardbell.com/uk/item/index.php?i=6923040000#show

So clearly I'm not alone. But what perplexes me is Microsoft have allowed
this 'wonderful' skinning feature, but they don't seem to have any help
files on how to 1 - install skins, and 2 remove the damn thing.

I have no reason to believe that the Packard Bell skin remover wont work
but does anyone know what the windows way of managing these skins is?

Does changing the Windows theme remove the skin? Have you looked in
Accessories, Control Panel, etc., for any PB built-in program for changing
the skins? (Have you read the manual or tried PB Help?) If not, go for it,
run the PB tool. You do have the PB recovery disk/partition, right?

SC Tom

 

[VanguardLH]

Bruce Hagen wrote ...

Fair point, however they might at least provide an article about it on their
web site. Something along the lines of: "You may find Outlook express
toolbar is inexplicably ugly and difficult to read, well guess what .. it's
an unsupported hack, but fear not, just do ..... something ..... to be free
of this irritation"

Oh yeah, Microsoft should continue writing even more huge help files
that users rarely read to include enormous volumes of information about
the millions of 3rd party products that can be installed in Windows and
can even modify the behaviors of Windows itself.

I'm sure if you investigated the Windows SDK (software development kit),
MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network), MS Technet, and other technical
resources uses by programmers to develop their products for use within
Windows that you would find the same information that the developer used
to create their product. What you call "skins" is probably what is
referred to as "themes" by developers and the general Windows populace.
Skins are something provided with a specific product to use with only
that product, not to every window that gets displayed within Windows.
I'm sure Microsoft does support "help files" - to developers that create
products that utilize the APIs within Windows. Microsoft won't know how
some product employs various system calls within Windows to perform some
task that is defined only by the 3rd party developer. Of course, if you
want to read all about Microsoft's various APIs then they do have that
info available. You would get to enjoy becoming a programmer to figure
out the documentation that Microsoft does provide to programmers so
those programmers can develop their own solutions and products.

It isn't Microsoft's job to police or educate users on every
non-Microsoft product that exists. Go complain the Packard Bell
regarding THEIR lack of documentation on using THEIR software.
Microsoft has no control over how much or detailed is the document that
is provided with 3rd party software. Plus we *users* here have no means
to make Microsoft do anything as well as make PBell improve their
product.

 

[VanguardLH]

Oh yeah, Microsoft should continue writing even more huge help files
that users rarely read to include enormous volumes of information about
the millions of 3rd party products that can be installed in Windows and
can even modify the behaviors of Windows itself.

I'm sure if you investigated the Windows SDK (software development kit),
MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network), MS Technet, and other technical
resources uses by programmers to develop their products for use within
Windows that you would find the same information that the developer used
to create their product. What you call "skins" is probably what is
referred to as "themes" by developers and the general Windows populace.
Skins are something provided with a specific product to use with only
that product, not to every window that gets displayed within Windows.
I'm sure Microsoft does support "help files" - to developers that create
products that utilize the APIs within Windows. Microsoft won't know how
some product employs various system calls within Windows to perform some
task that is defined only by the 3rd party developer. Of course, if you
want to read all about Microsoft's various APIs then they do have that
info available. You would get to enjoy becoming a programmer to figure
out the documentation that Microsoft does provide to programmers so
those programmers can develop their own solutions and products.

It isn't Microsoft's job to police or educate users on every
non-Microsoft product that exists. Go complain the Packard Bell
regarding THEIR lack of documentation on using THEIR software.
Microsoft has no control over how much or detailed is the document that
is provided with 3rd party software. Plus we *users* here have no means
to make Microsoft do anything as well as make PBell improve their
product.

After visiting the link you provide, my guess is that PBell provided a
customization to IE. Customized versions (i.e., branded versions) are
available from many sources. Often users eventually grow tired of the
branded version of IE and want to go to Microsoft's standard IE.

If you want to find out how third parties can customize IE, go read up
on the development kit for IE that lets you customize it.

You can start at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/cc721656.aspx to
begin finding out all the developer info on modifying or using IE.

Regarding the customization that PBell probably did to IE, you can read
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/bb219541.aspx to get info on the
IE Admin Kit (IEAK) used to modify behaviors or the look of IE.

Again, Microsoft provides the tools for customization. They document
them to those that use them to code their own solutions. If you want
the 3rd party to document their solution, you need to contact the 3rd
party.

Microsoft provides the tools. They explain their tools. They do NOT
explain the products that are built from their tools. A manufacturer of
a hammer doesn't explain how to build or repair a house.

 

[123Jim]

After visiting the link you provide, my guess is that PBell provided a
customization to IE. Customized versions (i.e., branded versions) are
available from many sources. Often users eventually grow tired of the
branded version of IE and want to go to Microsoft's standard IE.

If you want to find out how third parties can customize IE, go read up
on the development kit for IE that lets you customize it.

You can start at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/cc721656.aspx to
begin finding out all the developer info on modifying or using IE.

Regarding the customization that PBell probably did to IE, you can read
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/bb219541.aspx to get info on the
IE Admin Kit (IEAK) used to modify behaviors or the look of IE.

Again, Microsoft provides the tools for customization. They document
them to those that use them to code their own solutions. If you want
the 3rd party to document their solution, you need to contact the 3rd
party.

Microsoft provides the tools. They explain their tools. They do NOT
explain the products that are built from their tools. A manufacturer of
a hammer doesn't explain how to build or repair a house.

Thanks for all the info, good stuff!