Windows Skin Not Being Retained After Restart

[Honda_Boy]

I installed Style XP to change my PC's appearance. I found a theme I liked and downloaded. If I completely disable Style XP and restart my computer, my skin won't be retained but the color scheme will. It just goes back to windows classic. I right click the desktop and open the properties menu. I click the Appearance Tab. My skin is not showing up on the list. I turn style XP on and the skin magically appears on the list.

On my laptop I installed the skin first but it wouldn't show up on this list. I installed Style Xp and it started showing up. I disabled Style XP but yet when I restart the computer it does retain the skin and it continues to appear on the list.

Why is it that my laptop retains the skin but my desktop doesn't. I have to turn Style Xp on for it to work on the desktop. I only have 7 days left on style XP and I want to figure this out so I can have my skin without Style XP on here.

Thanks.

[Honda_Boy]

anybody got any ides?

[shanenin]

Is it possible style xp is still running in the background with the laptop? If you run msconfig from the laptop is it listed as a startup program?

Edited March 20, 2007 by shanenin

[Honda_Boy]

that's where I Disabled it from. when the lappy restarts, it treats the skin as if it was always part of windows. On the desktop if I let Style XP to start on startup at first the skin isn't present but then the Windows Please Wait thing shows up and few seconds later, the skin is reapplied. For some reason on the desktop the skin has to be reapplied while on the laptop it doesn't. What's the deal?

They are using 2 different skins but I don't think that makes a difference since no extra skins appear on the list without Style XP on the desktop but they do appear on the laptop without it.

*oops, I lied. It was running in the background of the laptop without me knowing it. That would explain why it was working on it.

OK so does anyone know of a FREE alternative to Style XP. I'm a cheap SOB so I won't pay for this stuff.

Edited March 20, 2007 by Honda_Boy

[TheTerrorist_75]

I posted this at G$ for someone that was interested in the same thing.

http://www.homenetworkhelp.info/index.php?...cast-2006-07-31

Your first choice (which costs a bit of money but pretty easy), you would need a program like Windowblinds (http://www.stardock.com) or StyleXP (http://www.tgtsoft.com). Windowblinds will use themes with the .wba extension, while StyleXP uses Visual Styles type themes (also known as MSStyles).

Your second choice (which is free but requires some work on your part).

Download the uxtheme.dll patcher program which will modify your uxtheme.dll to allow the use of non-MS themes. This is available from UXThemePatch

Now, you will be able to use any Visual Styles type theme which are available for free all over the internet. Some good links are:

Ubuntu theme: http://www.themexp.org

http://ww.wincustomize.com

http://www.xpthemes.com

http://www.tweakxp.com

http://www.customize.org

http://www.lotsofskins.com

http://www.skinbase.org

http://www.skinz.org

http://b0se.deviantart.com/gallery

http://www.bfarber.com

Just find the visual styles gallery at each site and download whichever you like. Once you have downloaded a theme, extract the contents of the folder to your Themes folder which is usually located at: C:\Windows\Resources\Themes. After you are done with the extraction, you will be able to apply your theme. You can either open up the Windows Theme file that you just extracted, or you can apply it in the same way you would apply the Luna theme - by opening up the Desktop Properties panel and choosing the "Appearance" tab.

[Honda_Boy]

Thanks TT. Finally quite bein lazy and did it. It works great and it's free . Even though it says it's for Server 2K3 is works in XP too.