[SOLVED] How do you create a theme for Windows 7 ?

I was wondering if someone on the forum could walk me through creating a custom theme from various downloaded pictures and adding one ofWEindows sound schemes to it ? Thanks everyone.

Hey brkkab123, check this link out. This should tell you what you want to know.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/24609...-from-scratch/

Bassfisher~

Thanks for that link.

Acctually been looking for something like that for a while.

Much appreciated.

~LoneWolf

Note: the link bassfisher6522 gave is for just the absolute basics of making a theme, if you want an entirely new theme like those seen when people edit their theme dll's. Then you'll have to find a resource editor to edit your explorer.exe, the aero msstyles file in your Windows\Resources directory, and your explorerframe.dll

Explorer.exe - Contains data for your start orb mainly that people like to edit
Explorerframe.dll - Contains data for your Explorer view navigational buttons mainly
AeroMsstyles - Contains data for your entire Windows aero and basic styles images

That's what i've done, but make sure that you have backups of your originals, or you know well how to use System File Checker to revert back to originals.

Or something like

Thanks every one. I may give it a try over the weekend.

Worst thing that happened to me is I lost my navigational tree inside the navigation pane in an OpenFileDialog, however that's a 2 second fix with
Or the SysWOW folder.

My windows is VERY customized if you only seen the changes i've made to it lol. I gave up on using a custom theme a while ago, but everything else in the background is highly custom. I'd hate to lose all of that work lol.

Good luck It's pretty fun assuming you're cautious, and you keep backups, or you know how to utilize system file checker to revert back to original files.

I believe Bassfisher's answer IS right on with what Microsoft calls themes. Resource Editors to edit DLLs and modify Aero is not for the average user; for one thing a windows update can come along and totally overwrite your changes to the system.

Thank you again Bassfisher.

I mentioned that it was the basics, although I never stated that he was wrong.

I,ll echo that but add that I could not see any need , even for the better than average user, for a resource editor.. Even Bassfsher's link is a little overcomplicated (But thanks - good suggestion, Bass)

Yeah, it does sound a little complicated. I may just put the photos in a folder and put that folder in the C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper folder, set it to rotate the photos and see if I still get the Windows sounds.