Win xp theme colors

Hey all...

I've searched and searched... is there anywhere to download simple updates to the themes that come with winxp? I mean for the price we pay for XP Pro, we should have more than olive green, silver and default blue.. dontcha think?

It's a bit ridiculous... and no, I don't want to get one of those fancy schmancy themes or anything because I don't like to use up too many resources.. I just want to use the XP theme but with a different color.

It's a small issue, but it's kind of like selling a model of car and only having it in red and green.

Thanks for any help.

spaz

 

find a patched uxtheme.dll, or use Style XP.

 

Thanks for the reply.. I'm not sure where to find the .dll but I'm figure it's just a modified color engine? I tried style xp and it's very nice, but the shareware version won't load with windows.. that's a drag.

 

Spaz........Try softpile.com I think they have some freeware themes there.

 

Thanks a bunch.. I'll check it out.

 

Hmm.. no luck. Looks like the only way to have the xp look and different than the couple of default themes is to buy one of the programs.. oh well. I can live with it.

 

http://home.pacbell.net/m-ray/screen.jpg

How much do y'all think styleXP hurts performance? I normally run my machines with the bare minimum frills, but got tired of the same 'ol desktop.

spaz

 

Its using the built in theme engine, so it shouldn't use much more resources than the default theme.

 

Sorry SPAZ. I had gotten XP themes from softpile.com a while ago, to theme a 98 so it looked like XP. I thought they had some free XP themes too. I guess they were just the default ones.

 

Not a problem at all, Brian C. I actually broke down and paid for it and found that I really like it. MOST of the themes available are way too crazy for me, but there are some people making skins with good taste. I am really happy with the one I chose for now (above).

And thanks very much, Adrynalyne. I was really concerned that I might be gimping performance in some way, even tho the little startup app seems to use only a moderate amount of memory. The themes look great even with only a couple of the fancy desktop animations and shadows selected. I typically make my own desktop image with photoshop as I like everything quite minimal, but this was one of a few that came with a theme that is nice.

And those folks out there designing the themes are getting better all the time.

spaz

PS. OH, before I forget... I looked up a way to remove the recycle bin from the desktop by deleting a particular registry key. I always use <shift> <delete> anyway and bypass it, so it was just "uglying up" the place. And duh, it seems to have deleted the recycling bin everyone in the GUI, but if only <delete> is used the message is still that the item was "moved to the recyle bin." Anyone know if there is a place to empty this w/o the icon available?

thanks.

 

Good plan, thanks..

I might have thought of that if I wasn't up all night messin with the thing... heehe'

Thanks.