IMPORTANT NOTE: Patching windows isn’t necessarily “safe” and shouldn’t be attempted unless you are willing to troubleshoot problems. There’s also some chance that it would void your warranty, etc etc. The point is that you might encounter problems.
First Step – Download the Patched Theme Files
This is an incredibly important step, as you don’t want to rename any files in the system32 directory without having the patched versions for the right version of Vista.
You’ll need to browse to the Within Windows site and download the correct version for your operating system. If you are running SP1, make sure you get the correct version, whether 32-bit or 64-bit.
Update: If you are using 64-bit Vista, use the file that says AMD64, even if you have an Intel chip.
There are three .dll files included in this package:
themeui. dll uxtheme. dll shsvcs. dll
All of these files are normally located in the C:\Windows\System32 directory. Those files will need to be replaced with the patched versions in order to enable custom themes.
Once you’ve downloaded the files you’ll need to extract them using a utility that can process .rar files, like WinRar or the free jZip utility. Make sure that you have extracted the files before you move on to the next step!
Second Step – Create a System Restore Point
You should create a system restore point before moving fowards, just in case there are any problems, so you can roll things back.
Create a System Restore Point in Windows Vista
Patching Files Using Take Ownership Utility
Patching these files is easiest if you use the Take Ownership context menu item, which will help you assign ownership of these files to your user account which will allow you to rename the files.
Browse down to C:\Windows\System32\ and then put the following into the search box so you can see all the files at the same time (make sure to use capital letters for “OR”)
Right-click on the files and choose “Take Ownership” from the menu, and then click through all the UAC prompts.
Now you’ll need to rename the files and append .old to the end of the file (either right-click and choose Rename or use the F2 key).
At this point you should have 3 files with the .old extension. Whatever you do, DO NOT RESTART your computer at this step, or you’ll be using system restore and probably asking for help on our forum.
Now we need to copy the patched files into the system32 folder. You can just type C:\windows\system32\ into the address bar, and then copy / paste or drag the patched files you downloaded into this folder.
The most important thing here is to make sure that those three files are sitting in the System32 folder. Now you should be able to restart your computer.
Patch Theme Files Using the Command Line
I recommend using the take ownership script above, rather than this method, but for completeness I’ll explain it as well.
First you’ll need to open a command prompt in Administrator mode by right-clicking the command prompt and choosing Run as Administrator, and then run these commands to take ownership of the files, and then grant access to the administrators group:
Note: Whatever you do, don’t try and run takeown ., because taking ownership of every single file in the windows directory is going to cause all sorts of problems.
takeown /f c:\windows\system32\uxtheme.dll
takeown /f c:\windows\system32\shsvcs.dll
icacls c:\windows\system32\themeui.dll /grant administrators:F
icacls c:\windows\system32\uxtheme.dll /grant administrators:F
icacls c:\windows\system32\shsvcs.dll /grant administrators:F
Now that you have taken ownership of the files, you can rename the files to *.old by running these commands:
Note: at this point you should be very careful to NOT RESTART your computer, because if you do so things will break.
ren c:\windows\system32\uxtheme.dll c:\windows\system32\uxtheme.dll.old
ren c:\windows\system32\shsvcs.dll c:\windows\system32\shsvcs.dll.old
Now you can copy the files that you downloaded and extracted into the system32 directory by running a command similar to this one (adjusting for wherever you extracted them to)
At this point you can now restart your computer.
How to Un-Patch Your System
If you want to reverse the process, you can simply remove the .dll files that you copied, and then rename the .old files back to .dll.
What To Do if You Have Problems
If you are having any problems, you should unpatch the system first, or can run System Restore to put the system back to normal. If you are still having problems, head over to our forums and ask your question there.
Where to Find Custom Visual Styles
If you want to download the custom theme from the first screenshot above, it’s called Ways of Light and can be found here.
One of the best places to find custom visual styles is deviantART:
Browse Vista Visual Styles on deviantART
NEXTLevel
This is one of my favorite themes:
Download the NEXTLevel theme.
How to Install a Custom Visual Style
When you download and extract a custom Visual Style, you’ll need to copy them into the C:\Windows\Resources\Themes directory, usually into a new folder:
You’ll want to make sure that the folder contains the visual style file within it, and not within a subdirectory of the theme folder:
Note: Some visual styles are structured incorrectly and will have problems. Read this post for more information.
Now that you’ve patched Windows and installed the theme, you need to open the Classic appearance dialog by right-clicking on the Desktop, choosing Personalize, then Window Color and Appearance. Then you can click the link at the bottom to open the classic appearance properties dialog:
Now you can choose the theme in the list. Note that some themes are based off the Window Aero theme and will show the same name, so if one is selected then just choose the other one. You’ll need to have Aero available in order to use a theme based on Aero, of course.
At this point you should be able to see your new custom themes. Enjoy!
