Slip me some ezskins.com

Slip me some ezskins.com
Thursday 31, March 2005

By James BannanWorkshop › General Tired of looking at the same old colours and fonts? James Bannan demonstrates how to give your desktop a makeover. Browse similiar articles

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Windows 95 first introduced desktop themes to the Microsoft world, which gave users options to change backgrounds, colour themes, sounds and fonts. However, the concept of “skinning“ reached a whole new level with Quake, which let players customise the appearance of its characters. From there, applications such as Winamp used the concept of skinning to alter their appearance, or the entire Windows GUI itself.

There are a few ways to give Windows XP a facelift, and each has its pros and cons. One is to use the MSStyles skin format, the system used by the UXTheme skinning engine embedded into XP and the basis of the standard blue, green and silver themes. Another is to employ an alternative skinning engine, which involves a third party application like WindowBlinds. And a third is to completely replace the Explorer shell with a customisable alternative.

Skin Away

The problem with MSStyles-based skins is that the engine, uxtheme.dll, scans any theme files to check whether they have been digitally signed by Microsoft. This security signature can’t be broken, but the check can. There are publicly available versions of uxtheme.dll which have the signature check disabled (you’ll find the XP SP2 version on this month’s cover DVD). Although this file is stable, you use it at your own risk — it replaces a core XP system file, and support won’t be an option if things go wrong.

To apply the patched version of uxtheme.dll, copy it to your local computer. Reboot your system and press F8 when Windows first starts to load. Select Safe Mode with Command Prompt and wait for Windows to load. Navigate to C:\Windows\System32 and rename uxtheme.dll:

ren uxtheme.dll uxtheme.bak

Then copy the patched uxtheme.dll to C:\Windows\System32 and reboot your system.

Your computer is now able to use unsigned themes based on MSStyle. These are freely available on many skinning sites, and a good place to start looking is www.customize.org/list/stylexp.

StyleXP is an application which also patches the uxtheme.dll file and uses MSStyle skins, but it makes a few other OS changes as well, and it’s had some stability issues. With the manual process, you’re only introducing one new file, rather than an entire application. When you download an MSStyle theme, double-click on the .msstyles file to apply it. Unless it’s part of the defined theme or it’s been zipped, the wallpaper won’t automatically apply and it needs to be done manually.

Start Your Engines

The disadvantages of using third party skinning engines are connected with reliability. MSStyles is the native XP engine, so it tends to have a degree of stability and performance which other applications can struggle to match.

The Stardock range of skinning applications (www.stardock.com) has taken a beating in the past as they caused Windows to crash or run slowly (but considering that they’ve been skinning since the early days of Windows, the company deserves some credit for effort). However, Stardock has taken the criticism on board and the current iterations of its programs are both stable, hardware-accelerated for nVidia drivers, and have a flexible and powerful skinning engine.

WindowBlinds is one of the first programs Stardock released, and the current free version, WindowBlinds 4.4, is available on this month’s cover DVD. It’s not trial-limited, but every time it’s launched the application bugs you to buy the Enhanced version. To install WindowBlinds, just launch the setup program and follow the prompts — there’s nothing tricky about it.

To switch skins, select the My Skins menu option on the left, choose a design from the bottom (it scrolls horizontally) and hit Apply this skin now.
If you want to grab some more skins online, click on Install skin from Web or go directly to www.wincustomize.com and select t he W indowBlinds menu option. Browse through the selection and download one you like — it should be in a Zip format. Don’t bother extracting it — just click on Install skin from disk, and navigate to the Zip. WindowBlinds will automatically extract the files and make the new skin available for selection.

WindowBlinds will apply the skin to every application, but you can create exceptions in the Per Application menu. You can also use the Basic Settings and User Overwrites areas to alter how WindowBlinds works and how ezskins.com are applied.

If you’d like to tweak a skin, or create your own from scratch, SkinStudio is the application for you. It integrates with all Stardock products and is available in free, standard and professional versions. It also allows you to import MSStyle-based skins for use/modifcation within WindowBlinds.
The free version is on the cover DVD. Again, it’s not trial-limited, but it will bug you to purchase one of the other versions. Once it’s installed, launch the application and you can create a brand new skin, or navigate to WindowBlinds skins if you want to edit an existing one. Once the application has been launched, the Edit with SkinStudio option in WindowBlinds will work properly.

Stepping Litely

For a completely different look, the next step is to replace Explorer. Applications which come with their own desktop shell have the advantage of recreating the look and feel of Windows from scratch, as they aren’t restricted by the basic Explorer framework. They run the risk, however, of not being as stable or smooth as Explorer. The other downside is that the majority of them are trial-limited shareware.

One application which isn’t trial-limited is LiteStep. Released under GPL, Litestep consists of the base shell and various modules which enhance the shell’s abilities. It’s not included on the cover DVD, as it requires registration on the Web site to download it, but you’ll never be bugged or asked to pay anything — it’s just to let the developers know how LiteStep is being distributed.

To get started, go to www.themexp.org and register a username and password. Once you receive the automated confirmation email, log in to LiteStep.net and go to the Downloads section. Select the top option, LiteStep, and download the LiteStep Installer 3.0.2 followed by LiteStep Beta Build (RC3). Run the Installer, then extract the Beta build into the c:\LiteStep directory to update the application files. Two new icons should appear on your desktop — double-click Set LiteStep as shell and restart.
At this point your machine will reboot and LiteStep will load instead of Explorer. The basic LiteStep skin is pretty bland, but you can jump online to get more eyecatching skins — www.customize.org/list/ls is a good place to start.

Once you’ve downloaded a skin you like, right-click on the desktop and go to LiteStep ezthemes.com > Change Themes > Install Theme. Navigate to the LSZ, LST or Zip file you downloaded, select it and click Install.

At this point in the process, a pop up message may appear, saying that you don’t have a particular module installed. It just means that the theme you are installing was created using particular extensions you don’t have. Since LiteStep is self-updating, all you’ll need at this point is an active Internet connection — LiteStep can automatically grab and install the required modules, and you won’t need to reboot.

Take a cruise around the LiteStep site for useful tips and tricks to enhance and tweak themes. It’s not the most intuitive of applications for creating your own themes, but there is a thriving online community (despite the apparent lack of updates), and your registration sets you up as a member, so chat away with the resident enthusiasts and see what you can learn.

The Sky’s The Limit

Skinning offers a great variety of options to revamp Wind o ws XP, ranging from a simple colour and font change to an entirely different way of using the operating system. And because you can completely replace the desktop shell, you’re not restricted in how far you can go. There are stacks of online resources — the Web sites mentioned in this Workshop are good starting points, but follow the links from these and you’ll find plenty of enthusiast sites to keep you happily downloading far into the ezskins.com future.