Computers Desktop themes

From where i can get some new Desktop Themes? anther than XP Style

 

there are like 3 basic ways to do this, some you have to pay money (or put up with naggy shareware).

1. You can buy themes from Microshaft (urk!) and other providers. Basically what M$ have done is made the .dll that takes care of themes in XP so that it only allows themes authorised by them. (BUT, see item 3.) However, these styles dont use extra memory than the default styles that you are running already.

2. Pay some 3rd party people like WIndow Blinds (Stardock) who will provide a app that you have to keep resident for their compatible styles to work. This app basically short circuits uxtheme.dll. You can choose from 1000s of styles, many crap, but some good, that they link to. Once you have the WindowBlinds prog, the styles are free to dl. The cost isnt a lot ($20), but what many WinDoh!s geeks object to the fact that Blinds use unecessary resources and can be buggy. Opinions vary, as usual.

3. The geek approved way involves replacing the file in Windows XP called uxtheme.dll (remember the one I said M$ limits what you can use to authorised stuff?) with a patched version. You can get a run once installer to do that, free, all that does is swap out the file for you. The installer only basicaly swaps the M$ dll with the correct patched one for your version of XP. This frees you up to use freeware styles that you can leech. Or if you are a wizz you can make your own with freeware tools and stuff. There is NO resident loader running taking up resources, like I told you about in point 2, because these styles, called msstyles are native to Windows.

OK. Now what? You have to decide if you want to get into any of this. Like any kind of tweaking something could go wrong and give you problems.

For a second opinion, and some links on further info, I refer you to this artical on Neowin net which is a reputable forum on tweaking WinDoh!s and such like.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t244384.html

 

Or download stylexp from www.themexp.org and hax your desktop.

Other prototypes can be find at www.customize.org

 

I can Get hacked by downloading a Themes =S

peopel are so cruel these days =-;(

lol, xD thx anyway

 

Teddz isn't saying you will get hacked.

"Replacing uxtheme.dll WILL NOT increase your vulnerability to viri or spyware. It does not disable Microsoft digital signing globally, only on .msstyles."

It's a patch to uxtheme.dll, XPthemes uses the method I described in my point 3. It's an alternative to using the Multi patcher prog, or just doing it manually. All this does is take the restriction off that M$ have put on to make you use their authorised stuff.

See here for info and a link to the patching prog.
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=308905

Here is another way of doing the same thing:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=182900

Once you have do this you can install the many msstyles format themes available.

And btw this does NOT use extra resources, other than disk space for the theme files. Even WindoBlinds doesn't take that much in fact.

 

ops...ok i think i got it xD

 

It depends on what kind of theme you are playing.

Add the desktop with a mobile clock, CPU and system graphs, and a full modded "ultra mini sized" desktop, and your ram will be eaten

 

Exactly Teddz, this is an issue with ANY theming method or UI tweaking, not specificaly to do with XPThemes, StarDock or msstyles in general.

If you use a light theming, similar to default XP, then there is no problem with resouce hogging.

Basically people can try it for themselves and decide, if its slowing your system badly, then unload. I happen to use WB, and pecieve no diffrence at all. But I use a modest theme.