Hello, I'd like to know where and how you get to know the location of bitmap images that come with themes. I know some bitmaps come from shell32.dll but what are the other files?
There's this tutorial for Vista Style Builder, that specifies many locations:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/18226090...-Builder-Complete-Guide-to-Theme-Building-pdf
All of those are on the theme's .msstyles file. Similar tutorials may have existed, but they all say more or less the same. The above tutorial has been
partially copied to this page, which is much less laggy and far easier to navigate:
Vista Style Builder: Explorer Deskmodder Wiki
The Control Panel background that you wish to find is made of two overlapped bitmap images. They are stored in the DLL file that you already mentioned (Shell32), as bitmaps number 634 and 635 (Resource Hacker):
C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll
Some elements of Explorer (the back, forward, recent pages, go, reload, stop and search buttons) are on the ExplorerFrame.dll files.
By the way, editing DLL files requires you to connect the dots from loose information on the internet, it requires you to figure some parts of what to do on your own, and for that, being at a level of expertise where one can only follow exact step by step tutorials may not be enough.
This guide provides some guidance on how to replace DLL files:
How to replace explorerframe.dll
DLL files are replaced by becoming their owner, getting full control permission to edit them (no program is needed for these two first steps, unlike people commonly resort to), renaming them (to .BAK for example), moving the new edited DLL files that will replace the original ones to the folder of the original ones while having them already titled exactly as the original ones were and moving the original ones out of that folder.
That's some precious information that no one told me and that I had to figure out on my own over the years.
As for this thread, it reminds me of my signature...
