Windows 7: [Help me with bugs!!] I'm porting Ambient theme to Win 7

Welcome everybody!
I started porting my favourite XP theme to 7 on 12.06.2012 (and finally today working on it more seriously ). I'm porting a Vista port of the Ambient theme to be exact. In direct port there were some bugs that were pretty annoying but I'm gonna fix them later, for now there is bigger one.
I like the original XP Places pane/Start menu more than Vista-styled so I decided to port it instead of leaving Vista one. While replacing bitmaps, changing content/scaling margins and testing theme after every single replace/change this appeared
-> attachment (places pane is too tall).
I tried changing scaling/default size values but I couldn't figure out what is wrong. So I'm writing here with hope that somebody will help me.

I want this thread to be general "help me" thread for my porting work so I'm not gonna start new one for each bug - I will be writing everything in this one

Thank you in advance for any help!

btw. Here is what a direct Vista port looks like: link.

Welcome to the Seven Forums
How are you porting these themes, what are you using?
Jerry

Oh! I totally forgot to mention that. I'm using Ave's Vista Style Builder (with 7 support ), and I have Restorator installed (mainly for extracting XP bitmaps but If using it to edit 7 theme will be necessary I know how to do it too). By the way: you could see it on the screenshoot

I have Windows Style Builder too. Post a link to the theme you got the start menu from and I will look at it and see if I can help.
Jerry

First of all thank you for your willingness to help.
My msstyles file:-> attachment
Original theme Ambient by ~tornado5 on deviantART
Vista port: Ambient Vista Port by =Satukoro on deviantART

I will do some testing and get back to you.
Jerry

I did some testing over the weekend and I could not get any good results at all, I even exported the images from your style.msstyles and imported them into a new copy of aero.msstyles and it came out even worse then what's in your screenshot.
The only solution I think I can offer would be you are going to have to create new images that will fit better.
Jerry

Thats shame it didn't work either way :/
Anyway, thank you for trying!

I've got start menu fully working but I still can't find out how to fix many things. I'm asking for help again. Could someone tell me where can I find highlighted items? Red - background (for Opera both focused and not); yellow - text color/highlighted and pressed backgrounds.

That's good you got the start menu straightened out, if you have time tell me what you did.

Post some screenshots with something highlighting the area you want changed and I will see if I can help.
Use these tutorials for posting screenshots.
Screenshot with Paint
How to Use the Snipping Tool in Vista - Vista Forums
Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

Jerry