What Windows themes do you recommended?

January 18, 2006 10:32 AM

i've patched uxtheme.dll and I'm looking for good free Windows styles/themes. What do you recommend?
posted by mr_silver to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Personally, I like the Royale, the Windows Media Center theme. It doesn't even require a patched uxtheme.
posted by Plutor at 10:35 AM on January 18, 2006

Anything by bose.
I first started using Opus when he initially released it, but I really like his latest as well.
posted by prostyle at 10:53 AM on January 18, 2006

look for the vista theme on deviantart (i think its there) its badass
posted by xospecialk at 10:57 AM on January 18, 2006

FlyakiteOSX, complete installer package (which actually patches your uxtheme.dll anyway), makes your Windows XP machine look and act exactly like MacOS X. Replaces icons, dll files, everything. Really impressive (and so is their website!).
posted by Ekim Neems at 11:27 AM on January 18, 2006

Black Mesa
posted by shinji_ikari at 11:57 AM on January 18, 2006

Endless amounts of completed themes in this Neowin forum.
posted by junesix at 12:02 PM on January 18, 2006

wow. Thanks to the questioner and the other commenters for opening my eyes to a world beyond the boring old StyleXP....
posted by tiamat at 12:17 PM on January 18, 2006

Also, try browsing Visual Styles at DeviantArt. Be careful, I used to have an incredibly time-consuming addiction to desktop modding!
posted by youarenothere at 12:59 PM on January 18, 2006

Engless amounts of completed themes in this Neowin forum.

Yeah, that is where I get all my themes. Definitly my favorites are the ones from Bosa and Watercolor is still one of my personal favs.

Check out the sorting options at the bottom of the forum. Usually the ones with the most comments are the most popular. I also do a sort by "Topic Started" to see whats new that week (as oppose to who has made the most recent comments). Neowin also has a good Wallpaper section. Their UXTheme patcher is also top-notch (not that you need it any more).
posted by nickerbocker at 1:53 PM on January 18, 2006

Maybe I'm stupid, but I patched the uxtheme.dll and would like to get some themes, but what the heck do you do with the downloaded themes? I downloaded some themes from customize.org, but where do I extract the files to and how do I apply the themes? I couldn't find actual instructions on how to do this.
posted by katyggls at 5:00 PM on January 18, 2006

Katyggls: I am new at this (thanks AskMeFi!), but looks like you unzip the themes contents into c:\Windows\Resources\Themes (so that the .theme file and its associated directory is right under c:\Windows\Resources\Themes).
posted by costas at 11:59 PM on January 18, 2006

I should have added: after doing the above, go to Display Properties (right-click form the desktop) and then go to either Themes (the theme should appear in the drop-down) or Appearance (the theme will appear under "Windows and Buttons"). Apparently some do the former, some the latter, so try both.
posted by costas at 12:23 AM on January 19, 2006

HmmXP is the one I'm running (with a dash of Sustenance). I love it - nice round organic look, cool bezels and scrollers, pretty neat. Play around with colors if you like - I prefer blue.

Check out others suggestions.
posted by noahv at 10:24 AM on February 14, 2006