Basic theme - changing some item colours does not work

For the moment I am staying with the Windows 7 Basic theme. I have customized some elements after reading this Tutorial Window Color and Appearance - Change but have run into a few issues:

a) Active Title bar - I changed the two colours, Applied them but my windows remain pastel blue (same goes for the Inactive Title bar),

b) the Window Borders - the colours there seem to determine how saturated the pastel blue borders are,

c) when I hover over an icon on the Desktop (which is black) the icon is surrounded by a nasty dirty grey background colour,

d) changing other elements (e.g Desktop, Window, Border padding, various font definitions (using Trebuchet and Tahoma) and colours) worked fine.

-- Can someone tell me how to get the first two to work as they should?
-- Also, how can I change that pastel blue colour and the desktop icon highlighting colour?

On basic not all changes of colors work
need to replace pictures inside the theme.
I managed to change only fonts through "window color"

And complete basic theme is redone in restorator.

Hello DarkStarGT, so far I have replicated 16 Windows Classic themes available under the Windows Classic Style tab using XP Mode as a guide. If you had a favorite XP classic theme in mind I may have replicated it Here see (post # 313).

I could not replicate the XP Style themes only the classic themes.

Tutorial said:

7. To Change the Advanced Appearance Settings
WARNING: Colors and sizes selected for items will only be used if you have selected a Windows Classic or High Contrast theme. If any other theme is applied, you will not be able to change colors and sizes for items.

Those settings do not work for Aero, nor windows basic themes.

LiquidSnak said:

Tutorial said:

7. To Change the Advanced Appearance Settings
WARNING: Colors and sizes selected for items will only be used if you have selected a Windows Classic or High Contrast theme. If any other theme is applied, you will not be able to change colors and sizes for items.

Those settings do not work for Aero.

I believe the OP wants to use the non Aero Windows Basic or windows classic themes but change the default background colors.

Edited for clarification. Windows classic theme, or a high contrast one must be used to take advantage of those options.