How to Change Your Windows Theme

Are you bored with the standard silver or blue taskbar Windows supplies you with? Are you still using boring manila folders throughout your computer? Spice up your PC! This article will illustrate how to change Windows XP themes without having to pay for third party software such as StyleXP and WindowBlinds. That's right, you can change the way Windows looks without buying or stealing the programs mentioned above.

Changing the appearance of Windows should be as easy as changing the skin on Firefox... why not have the two match? I do! But a little more on that after the instructions.

To begin I suggest searching Google to find a theme you want to use on windows. There is no point in being able to change your theme if you don't have one picked out. I suggest saving themes to a specified folder such as C:\Windows\Resources\Themes for easy access later.

A great place to look for themes is ThemeXP.org, however, most themes on that site are "wrapped" which means they come with bundled advertisements. These advertisements are annoying but easily removed from the add/remove programs dialog. Another place to look for themes is DeviantArt, in the Customization > Skins & Themes category.

Now that you've found a pretty new theme you need to install it. Remember, no third part programs here! The way we are going to install this theme is by using a patched version of "uxtheme.dll" which handles Windows themes. Download the latest version from softpedia.com (look for the full link under Additional Resources). Extract this zip folder to your desktop.

This next step is very important. Navigate to C:\WINDOWS\system32 and find the file named uxtheme.dll and rename it uxtheme.dll.OLD. This allows you to keep the un-patched version rather than to overwrite it, incase you want to revert back.

Now, move the patched file from your desktop to C:\WINDOWS\system32. You should now have in that folder uxtheme.dll and uxtheme.dll.OLD side by side. Finally you need to do is restart the computer.