XP colours customization

[LeMarchand]

Got a bit tired with the XP blue and not keen on Olive or Silver, and I'd like to change the colour scheme. Unfortunately, it seems the only way to do this is to use the "Classic" windows style - even the commercial programs I tried (Desktop Architect, Windowblinds, Style XP) basically do that. It is possible to use a style for one of the above programs and adapt it, but they all seem to have done ugly things with the buttons - plus only the first prog is free, and I don't really want to pay for what should be a simple job. I've looked at a lot of ready-made styles, but either they need a third-party prog to apply, have the aforementioned ugly buttons or are Mac clones. Has anyone got any ideas on how to retain the XP look, but with different colours (for free!)? (I even looked into "shells", but the one I tried - Litestep - seemed to slow things to a crawl, so I gave up).

[fo3nix]

You want to do what's explained here:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index. php/t339820.html

but get the UXTheme patch from here:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhanceme nts/Themes/UXTheme-Patch-For-Windows-XP-SP2-Fi nal.shtml

Then you can find lots of different msstyles, some of which are pretty decent.

[LeMarchand]

Sorry - should have said that I'd patched uxtheme.dll already. Still, at least now I remember what that "Replacer" program was d/l'd for!

I guess I'll have to keep looking and hope that I find one I like eventually - there's a few possibilities at the Neowin forum...

[fo3nix]

Generally they do look pretty bad yea.. they're just designed by your average joe designer, most without any great knowledge about computer UI design.

[LeMarchand]

Just upgraded your answer, fo3nix - found something that I liked at a link off that Neowin URL! The style I liked (Slate Refresh) said that it needed StyleXP, so I had d/l it again - hopefully you only have to pay for a full-featured version. If not, http://www.deviantart.com/view/31184159/ looks pretty cool.

[fo3nix]

That deviantart one is just one that is trying to look like Windows Vista. To be honest I gave up a long time ago with changing the style of all the computer stuff; they're either trying to make the OS look like another (Mac OS X or Vista right now it seems), or they're just really bad styles that work badly.