winXP in black....

Archytas

Hope this is in the right place...

Does anyone know how/if its possible to change the colour of winXP. I just wanna change the bars to black or grey? But dont wanna use windowblinds or any other software.(The default black theme keeps crashing my computer.) There used to be registry tweaks for pre XP. Anybody know if they still exist in XP or any other way of doing it?

Many thanks!

Karoma

Which "bars" - title colours can be changed in Appearance settings (Control Panel -> Display->Appearance->Advanced button)
Which "default black theme" - XP's high contrast, or one of those software packages..?

Archytas

no, the default black theme in windowsblinds...

The title bar, taskbar, etc! Sorry for the vagueness....

Capt'n Midnight

Turn off themes for they are the work of Satan - choose windows "classic" ( I use the cursors from NT 3.5 so it don't even come close to "classic" but the M$ don't use the same meanings for words as we do.

Display properties - Appearance - Colour Scheme = High Contrast Black
now click on advanced and when the window appears click on the part of the screen you want to change

Archytas

Thanks for the reply! And yeah thats sort of the area I was goin for...
And now I'm happy! But still does anyone know how to change just the taskbar to black in the XP themes?... When vista comes out Im going to buy it just for the black taskbar!! - Kinda makes me a loser doesn't it...... hmmm..

Zapho

There's a program out that might help. Its called UXTheme patcher or something. It just patches the windows kernel to allow you to use other themes like xpstyle without actually running any styling programs, seen as those things eat RAM and cpu time! Anyway it works really well, and I'm sure you could find a black xp theme on the net somewhere then.

sound_wave

Have a look at this thread http://www.penny-arcade.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=205970&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=50

lots of desktops and themes, plus links to UXPatcher and Black Mesa a black theme for XP, which you can use once you have used UXPatcher.

Spunog UIE

the thing with xp with out window blinds or the UXTheme patcher, is that it groups 3d objects into one group. So that if you want the taskbar etc black, window borderes and other '3d' parts of the desktop will also be black. Anyway I'd suggest you try get windowblinds or the theme patcher to work. They use feck all extra memory in winxp.

If you want to do it the old way, maybe you'll like it you can...

Right click desktop, and goto properties, then the appearnce tab. Then advanced. Change all the colours below or to ones you like.



Then hit ok, then apply. And that should do it. There's a few other colours you'll want to change around but ye'll figure that out. Be aware tho that any 3d bars inside programs will probally be black too. It makes for a very dark desktop : \

Archytas

Thanks Gideon for puttin so much effort in. Its very much appreciated. Yeah I'll try getting the others to work.. I'll try getting that UX thingy but I'lll use the other as a fall back! Thanks!