Are there free themes for XP ?

Are there free themes for XP ? I've never been able to get them. All I egt are pay sites.

 

I am partial to "Royale Noir". Also the standard Royale looks much more polished than the standard XP theme.

Here is a good article:

http://lifehacker.com/software/windows/give-xp-a-facelift-154121.php

 

Yes you can, but you need to patch the uxtheme.dll file to install non Microsoft signed themes.

Patched uxtheme.dll for Windows XP SP2
www.themesxp.org : A site with Visual Styles for XP. (there are many more)

 

Try the official Zune theme (no dll patching required):
go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=75078

screen attached...

 

Can you post a screen shot?

EDIT: Actually I found some, also the Royale theme looks pretty nice I think I am going to give it a shot

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhancements/Themes/Royale-Theme-for-WinXP.shtml

 

Here is picture of what it looks like after, not a huge difference but I would say its an upgrade

 

Thers alway FlyaKiteOSX it will give you a dock & everything OSX.

 

I suggest you get the latest version of Uxtheme.dll patcher and not do it manually 'cause it a pain in the but, and when your done and restarted just go to deviantart.com and click categories and search for themes. My cousin got some really cool themes off that site.

 

Yeah, I use the Royale Noir. Nice shade of dark blue. I've used the Zune theme in the past, but didn't like the orange start button.

 

Does the Uxtheme.dll patcher or new themes slow down the computer ? Or make it less safe ? Open to attacks etc.

 

Uxtheme patcher patches the file for you so you don't have to do it manually. As i said, doing it manually is a pain in the but so use the program unless you like hard work. New themes don't slow down your comp unless they are graphic intensive, or are coded badly, or are infected with a virus. it doesn't make it any less safe that it was before, the only side-effect is that you can use themes by other people than Microsoft. It doesn't make you vulnerable to attacks either.

 

Why the heck did MS design XP in a way that other people themes cant be used without a patch ???

 

That site says this:

Will there be ads constantly streaming onto the desktop ?

 

I liked the orange start button better than the green one. Made it look different, that's what i liked!

 

Alienware Free themes.
They are free, cool and nice looking!

 

I prefer the dark blue start button on the Royal Noir. I patched my other notebook and am running a dark Vista theme on that. I always use the HP to test stuff like that. It didn't seem to do anything bad, so I probably will try it on the Toshiba soon.

 

Where can I get a Vista theme? I have been looking for one for a while. Also could you post a screen shot?

 

The Royal Noir is not a Vista theme, it's an XP. And the one I have on my HP is an XP theme that looks like Vista.

 

Found this thread very interesting so by now I'm into Royal Noir.
Thx for starting it
From Softpedia you can get a clean Uxtheme.dll.
After downloading some themes from deviantart.com I found most of them contained a Trojan according to Avast antivirus.
Avast suggested to move them into quarantine so I did.
Anyone else with the same experience, or was it maybe a mistake from Avast.

 

Probably a false positive from avast.. I've downloaded about 50 themes from deviantart and have never had any problems with them (and trust me, I know 100% my machine is malware free).
The good thing about a site like deviantart is people leave comments, so if someone ever uploads a malicious file, people will make comments about it, and it will be promptly taken down. Really, I've never seen a malicious file on deviantart.

 

Zune.net has a sweet black/orange XP theme, if you're into that darker theme style.

 

if you'd like to get a vista theme theres a thing called "crystalxp". it makes xp look just like vista, it even changes the icons and the side links in windows explorer to mimick the ones in vista. theres actually a couple of different themes crystalxp has.

heres a link:
http://www.crystalxp.net/bricopack/fr.htm

 

That is exactly what I want, an XP theme that looks like vista, sorry it didn't come out that way

 

I recommend Vista Inspirat Ultimate 2. With True transparency,for that real vista look.

 

That looks good, so to install I just download the patch file from the previous page and then download these and I should be good to go right?

 

That looks nice indeed... But that doesn't seems to be an ordinary MSStyles theme, therefore you would most probably notice a performance hit, especially with transparency effects.

If you want a standard Vista look-alike XP theme that has no performance loss (unfortunately that also means no transparency either) use something like this.

 

Do you think there would still be a preformance hit without True Transparency?

 

I get this error when trying to run uxtheme patcher 5.5:

"Uxtheme Multi-patcher v5.5 has detected that there's any windows NT file in
C:\i386

It's not recommend you to continue with this. Please eject your Windows NT CD or move that foler to somewhere else. Press OK to exit UXtheme patcher"

What does that mean?

EDIT: Well I went ahead and installed the Vista Insprint theme without doing the patch (don't know if that was a smart idea) but, everything seems to be working fine, I haven't noticed a performance hit nor do I seem to have extra processes running

 

I have the same problem

 

yep, it is true with the trojan from time to time when dowloading themes from many sources - avast is not making any mistakes on this

cheers ...

 

work around:
- rename the folder "I386" to any name
- run the UXTheme Patcher again
- after completion, revert "any name" back to "I386"

cheers ...

 

Easiest way is to use the patched dll. If you are using XP SP2 then get it from here. First rename the original uxtheme.dll under x:\Windows\system32\dllcache [x:= system drive] and copy the modified file. Then rename or delete the original uxtheme.dll from x:\Windows\system32 and copy the modified file, if a warning pops up saying that a file has changed and ask you to insert the original CD, just cancel it. Reboot and you are done!.

 

Is is strange that I was able to change to a vista theme without doing this?

 

If you installed Vista Inspirat Ultimate 2, then that must have patched the dll; or it is using some other themeing engine. Because without patching you cannot install non Microsoft msstyles themes.

 

XP has a very bad design, a theme should not pose a threat to the system.
Never would happen on linux

 

Wow I wish I had seen this topic before. I'll try some new themes on my notebook when I get home from work.

 

For those where the uxtheme.dll patcher isn't working, try this one; I've never had a problem with it.

Regarding trojans, I'm still 99% sure that 99% of the themes on deviantart, if not all of them, are clean.

 

I agree with iza on this. DeviantArt is one of my favorite sites on the net. I spend way too much time there.

 

Have your tried adding true transparency?

 

Dude true transparency doesn't take up that much resources at all, it's very light weight. Now if you want something that looks better like: Vystal vivid then i'm sure there might be a performance hit. Now about deviant art being safe i am sure that it is 99.9% safe because i used it when i had xp, and my cousin used it and there were no viri when we scanned. Also if you want there a couple of tricks for xp to get vista sidebar on it.

 

www.themesxp.org
That site says this:

Will there be ads constantly streaming onto the desktop ?

Also, can anyone point me to the themes section on deviantart ? I do not see it...

 

http://browse.deviantart.com/customization/skins/windows/visualstyle/
I recommend sorting by Popular > All Time, since there's like a million crappy ones.

 

Wearetheborg, give Vista Inspirat Ultimate 2 a shot its really nice and does all the patching stuff for you, I am pretty pleased with it thus far

 

Found this link which has total transformation pack, haven't tried it but looks interesting.

http://www.windowsxlive.net/?p=1119

 

In my old age and senility - I cannot find the download location for the MS Royale theme. The MS link much earlier in this thread is for an MS New Zealand wallpaper. Any help would be appreciated...

 

http://royale-theme-for-win-xp.en.softonic.com/

 

Thank-you kind Sir - talk about a quick response!!

 

It's very good, and quick (if you have a fast system) but i think it's hard to get rid of, so i'd stick with shell packs unless you want to make a big commitment.

 

I would stay away from the Vista transformation pack. I personally had some bad experience with it in the past that eventually led to a Windows reinstallation. As said above, uninstalling is not as smooth as they advertise. And it may cause layout problems with some applications.

 

Wikipedia has the link to some Windows XP themes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Blue

Here's a cool link to some Windows Vista, Longhorn, and Mac wallpapers.
http://neosmart.net/gallery/v/wallpapers/



Zune Theme