Customization of Windows visual appearance
29 November 2001 by Snakefoot | Comment » | Trackback OffWindows can be customized with wallpapers, themes, boot-screens and logon-screens, and many Windows applications can apply skins that changes their looks completely.
Windows XP was the first Windows operating system to support skinning or styling of the desktop, previous Windows operating systems could only change the wallpaper, icons, mouse-cursor and the colors of the window title bar (Unless using Windowblinds). Windows XP will by default only apply styles or themes that are signed by Microsoft, but this can be changed with a patched uxtheme.dll.
Windows XP was the first Windows operating system to support skinning or styling of the desktop, previous Windows operating systems could only change the wallpaper, icons, mouse-cursor and the colors of the window title bar (Unless using Windowblinds). Windows XP will by default only apply styles or themes that are signed by Microsoft, but this can be changed with a patched uxtheme.dll.
Resources for Windows customization
| Site | XP Themes | Wall papers | Boot Screens | Logon Screens | Skins |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ThemeXP.org | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Skinbase.org | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| WinXPTheme.com | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Few |
| XPtheme.info (Ads hell) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| LightStar1.com (Free & Premium) | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| GetSkinned.org | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Customize.org | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| WinCustomize.com | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Some |
| WinMatrix.com (Forum) | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Belchfire.net | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| bfarber.com | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Tss2000.nl | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| LotsOfSkins.com | Some | Yes | Some | Some | Yes |
| Skinz.org | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| PCdesktops | Few | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| WmPlugins.com | No | No | No | No | WMP |
Resources for Wallpapers
- devianART.com - Community of artists and those devoted to art in digital form.
- Digitalblasphemy.com - Psychedelic wallpaper experiences
- ArtUproar.com - Free wallpapers for download
- GameWallpapers.com - Like games ? Like wallpapers ?
- KDE-Look.org - Linux KDE desktop customization but also wallpapers.
- Gnome-Look.org - Linux Gnome desktop customization but also wallpapers.
- BlueSkyHeart.com - Layne Karkruff created Blue Sky Heart Graphics (BSHG) along with several wallpaper collections.
- FreeWallpapers4u.com - Community driven wallpaper site where wallpapers can be submitted for rating.
- WallPaperChanger.de - Can change your background images on every startup (Check out the picture links).
- BestQualityWallpapers.com - Top quality, high resolution desktop wallpapers.
- Wstaylor.net - Microsoft Wallpapers.
- WallPaperChanger.de - Can change your background images on every startup. (Checkout the Picture Links).
Windows XP Themes signed by Microsoft
Microsoft has released their own signed themes, which can be installed by just extracting them to the following folder:The themes below have been repackaged to work out of the box with Windows XP and MS Office 2003 (Added a .themes file and a luna.msstyles file):C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\
- Royal Energy Blue (Preview) - Microsoft first released the Royale Energy Blue (Download Mirror) for the Tablet PC as simple package, but now the theme is included in the Experience Pack for Tablet PC (Direct Download).
Microsoft New Zealand later released the Royale Energy Blue (Download mirror) for XP Pro/Home along with their bliss desktop backgrounds, but it has been withdrawn now. - Royal Noir (Preview) - Unofficial Theme discovered by W3bbo. Most likely a prototype of the Zune theme.
- Zune (Preview) - Microsoft released the Zune theme (Download mirror) with the launch of the Zune Player.
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Updated: 23 September 2007