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Making Windows Vista Look Different With Customized Themes

By Martin Brinkmann
Nov 16, 2008
The Windows Vista is the latest operating system from Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft had done a lot of Research and Development for making this Operating system secure, safe, fast.

Windows Vista is powered with vibrant looks and great display. Windows Vista has a lot of inbuilt display themes to give it a new look. Many of the times the user may want to add new themes also, but it is not possible to add customized themes in Windows Vista because Windows checks the themes with a cryptographic key for security purpose.

If we want to add customized themes in Windows Vista then we need to patch it to allow custom themes to install. But it is not safe and secure to patch the Windows Vista and you may encounter problems due to this, and it can also void the warranty of the operating system. The steps mentioned below should be followed to patch Windows Vista to support customized themes:

1.Make a restore point of your operating system using the System Restore Utility.

2. Patch your Windows Vista: In Windows Vista there is the file Uxtheme.dll which verifies the visual themes style before applying to Operating system . At the OS level we are going to replace the Uxtheme.dll file with a new modified version of Uxtheme.dll that does not verify the visual style is verified by Microsoft.

It is a tough task to modify this file manually. There are lot of programs available on Internet to patch this file with a single click. We just need to download on of these programs and install them on the OS. They will simply replace Uxtheme.dll file with patched Uxtheme.dll file.

ne of the link from which we can download the patched version of Uxtheme.dll file is from the Within Windows website. From this link download the patched theme files . The downloaded file will be in Zip format, now unzip the file in a folder. This package will contain following files themeui.dll ,uxtheme.dll ,shsvcs.dll.

Now browse the C:WindowsSystem32 and search these files. Once you find these files take the ownership of these files and rename these files with .old at the end. Now just copy the extracted patched files in this folder. Once its done restart your computer. Now the OS is patched.

If you face any problems with this just remove these files and restore the old files and remove the .old from the end of the files. The other option we can use is the System Restore Utility.

3. Once the system is patched you can download the Vista themes and apply them to your computer.

So it is not a big task to patch the Windows Vista but it will make your desktop look different.
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