not all components being skinned by custom themes

[negativedrew]

Hey! I patched the .dlls to run some custom Windows 7 Visual Styles and while they show up in the folder and appear to apply normally, they don't skin everything: namely the Start button. The taskbar itself and windows/buttons seem to all get skinned, as well as the Start Menu, but not the actual button. Any idea what to do to get this to work? Thanks!

Drew

 

[Bongo]

Welcome to the Seven Forums
Some themes have some system files (shell32, Exploreframe, Imageres, Timedate) to change the buttons & some other things a custom theme will change start menu, taskbar, window explorer, menu
Jerry

 

[negativedrew]

These visual styles are meant to skin the start button. The preview images for the styles show the various button styles, but they never get applied.


Edit: ok so I've discovered it's because the Start button itself is in explorer.exe and not the style file. The visual styles I installed came with a modified explorer.exe, but I'm not sure how to implement it.

 

[Bongo]

These visual styles are meant to skin the start button. The preview images for the styles show the various button styles, but they never get applied.


Edit: ok so I've discovered it's because the Start button itself is in explorer.exe and not the style file. The visual styles I installed came with a modified explorer.exe, but I'm not sure how to implement it.

Back up your drive Or make a restore point first
You need to take ownership of the file to change it

Right click on the file and go to 'properties'.
Click on the 'security' tab.
Click 'Advanced'.
Click on the 'Owner' tab.
Click 'Edit'.
Select your user and click OK.
Click OK on the next box.
Then OK on the final box.

Now right click on the file again and go to 'Properties'
Click on the 'security' tab.
Click 'Edit'.
Select 'Users'.
In the bottom part of the box, tick the box to allow 'Full Control'
Click OK then OK again on the last box.

You now own that file and have full permissions over it.

Now simply right click and 'rename' the extension of the file to .BAK
Then paste in your replacement file.

Jerry