Windows visual style for windows xp

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Windows XP visual styles are customizations of the graphical user interface of Windows XP. «Luna», «Royale», «Zune», and «Embedded» are codenames of the official visual styles designed for Windows XP by Microsoft.^[1] Since Windows XP, themes include the choice of visual styles as well.^[2] By default, «Luna» is preinstalled on Windows XP Home and Professional editions, «Royale» is preinstalled on Windows XP Media Center Edition and «Embedded» is preinstalled on Windows Embedded Standard 2009 and Windows Embedded POSReady 2009. In addition to the preinstalled visual styles, Microsoft has released additional ones for download. Third parties have also released visual styles, though these require modification of core Windows components to work. Visual styles are compatible with all Windows XP editions except Starter Edition.

Compared to Desktop Themes in previous versions of Windows such as Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me, the new visual styles have a greater emphasis on the graphical appeal of the operating system, using saturated colors^[3] and bitmaps^[4] throughout the interface, with rounded corners for windows.^[5][6]

The visual styles API was substantially expanded in Windows Vista and later. Nevertheless, the API remained heavily underdocumented.^[7]

Luna[edit]

«Luna» (the Moon in Latin and various other languages) is the codename for the default visual style of Windows XP. Officially known as «Windows XP style», it is available in three color schemes: blue (default), olive green, and silver.^[6][8] Critics who did not like the theme characterized it as a «Fisher-Price interface».^[9][10] The Luna theme was also present in all pre-reset Windows Vista (Longhorn) builds, but was absent from all post-reset builds starting with build 5098 (apart from very early «Omega-13» post-reset builds 3790, 5000, 5001, 5048 and 5049).

Luna Beta[edit]

Luna Beta is an earlier version of the Luna theme that was included in beta builds from builds 2428 to 2465, and later appeared in the leaked source code of Windows XP in September 2020. Officially known as «Whistler style», it is mostly similar to the final Luna theme, with some slight differences (such as the scrollbar being brighter). This theme is unofficially available as a separate theme made by enthusiasts.

Windows Classic[edit]

Officially titled «Windows Classic style», this is the built-in look and feel that was also used in previous versions of Windows. It is used when the theme service is disabled and in certain other scenarios, such as Win32 console windows or booting the system in Safe mode. Classic style widgets are also used for applications that are not theming-aware even though theming is enabled. It is less CPU-intensive and offers better performance,^[11] due to which it is also used by default on Windows Server 2003 through 2008 R2.

Compared to other visual styles, it supports greater color and font customization options. Windows XP includes 22 preset color schemes for the classic style. Four of them^[12] are optimized for the visually impaired. «Windows Standard» scheme was the default color scheme of Windows ME and Windows 2000 and appeared on Windows Vista and Windows 7 although in the latter, it was renamed «Windows Classic». A slightly darker variant of the Standard scheme, called «Windows Classic», was the default color scheme of Windows 98 (albeit with a dark blue desktop background instead of green, much like the pre-release versions of Windows 2000) and appeared on Windows Vista but not Windows 7.^[13][6] Other schemes appeared in the previous versions of Windows. The style was removed from Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8, however, it still exists internally for backward compatibility purposes.^{[citation needed]}

Royale[edit]

Royale (also known as Energy Blue and Media Center style) was originally designed for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, and was ported to Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005.^[14] It is accompanied by a new wallpaper (inspired by Windows XP Bliss). It presents a relucent, vivid and faux-reflective color scheme with intense blue and green colors.

Royale was originally made available in December 2004. On April 7, 2005, Microsoft New Zealand^[15] had made the Royale theme and the wallpapers for the New Zealand theme available for download^[16] for all editions of XP through Windows Genuine Advantage on its website but no longer exists in 2019. Because of the freeware nature of this package, it had also been available on software download websites, such as Softpedia at one time.^[17]

Microsoft did also release a Windows Media Player visualization and skin at one time. The skin was released in Experience Pack for Tablet PC and was available for free,^[18] but the installer only installed it on Windows XP Tablet PC Edition devices, for which it was licensed.

Royale Noir[edit]

Royale Noir looks like a darkened version of Royale, having a blackish and bluish to purple tint. Royale Noir has a black Start button, which changes to green when the mouse hovers over it. As Royale Noir was leaked and not finalized by Microsoft, it has been noted for some imperfections.^[19]

Zune[edit]

A few weeks after Royale Noir was leaked, Zune was officially released in a theme package to accompany the release of Microsoft’s new Zune media player. In terms of style, Zune resembles Royale and Royale Noir, particularly the latter. It displays a brown to light shadow style and is the first publicly released visual style for Windows XP to include a differently colored Start button from the green XP.^[20][21]

Embedded[edit]

Windows Embedded Standard 2009 and Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 came with a dedicated visual style called Embedded. It is similar to Royale, featuring a mix of dark blue colors.

Watercolor[edit]

Codenamed «Business» and «Professional», and officially known as «Watercolor button style», Watercolor is a placeholder theme present in pre-release builds prior to Beta 2 as well as the leaked source code of Windows XP in September 2020. The theme more closely resembles Windows Classic, featuring sharp edges and similar window proportions. It features a primarily blue and white style with mostly flat shading and retains certain UI elements from the Classic theme style. This theme is unofficially available as a separate theme made by enthusiasts.

Mallard[edit]

Officially known as «Sample Test Visual Style», Mallard is a theme that was designed as a decoy to show to the public during Beta 2’s development while designers privately worked on Luna.^[22] It was present in certain builds given out to testers, all of which eventually leaked onto the internet, and later appeared in the leaked source code of Windows XP in September 2020. It features two color schemes, Chartreuse Mongoose, which features a primarily green and orange style, and Blue Lagoon (internally referred to as Paler), which uses a teal and purple style, though both themes feature an orange start button with a green notification area. This theme is unofficially available as a separate theme made by enthusiasts.

Candy[edit]

Candy is an unannounced and unreleased theme which was found in the leaked source code of Windows XP in September 2020. It was made between builds 2250 and 2257, according to the metadata of the files in the theme. Candy seems to be an imitation of the Aqua theme found in earlier versions of Mac OS X (10.0 to 10.6).^[23] According to publicly available screenshots, only some UI elements, such as buttons, scroll bars, and the Start menu, had been redesigned to look like Mac OS X’s, while others used the Classic theme style.

Third-party visual styles[edit]

Windows only loads a visual style that bears a valid Microsoft digital certificate.^[24] As such, third-party visual styles can only be used if one of the Windows files called uxtheme.dll is altered to allow unsigned visual styles.^[25][26] Microsoft is aware of such a practice and suggests obtaining a newer revision of the patched uxtheme.dll file in case problems occur after Microsoft’s own updates to the file have been applied (typically through an OS service pack).^[27]

Application support[edit]

Third-party applications can be configured to work with visual styles. By default, the title bar and the window borders of Windows Forms-based applications are rendered using the user’s preferred visual style, while the rest of the application’s graphical user interface (GUI) is rendered in the Classic style.^[28] This is because these two different parts of the GUI are rendered using two different software libraries: the title bar and the window borders («non-client area» or «user controls») use Windows USER, and the remaining controls («client area» or «common controls») use version 5.8 of the Common Controls Library.^[29] Version 6.0 of the Common Controls Library contains both the user controls and the common controls, and developers may configure the application’s user interface to be displayed in the user’s currently-selected visual style by forcing it to be rendered using version 6.0 of the library.^[30][31]

See also[edit]

• Windows Aero
• WinCustomize
• WindowBlinds
• StyleXP
• Features new to Windows XP
• Theme (computing)

References[edit]

Your source for free skins-visual styles-themes

• Download demo project — 12 Kb

Introduction

When Windows XP was first released with Windows XP Visual Styles, or «theming», many people were excited about the new look. When .NET was nearing the 1.0 release, however, many of the same people — including myself — were disappointed that Windows Forms did not support Windows XP Visual Styles. After doing some research into the Visual Styles API and the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK documents, I realized that Visual Styles are not hard to add to a .NET application.

The tutorial that follows is a simple process for adding visual styles to your applications and controls. After setting up your project, this tutorial will cover the basic types of controls that can use Windows XP Visual Styles, what makes the visual styles work, and how to tell Windows to theme your applications and controls.

Update: a bug where a TabPage or a GroupBox within a TabPage is not drawn with theme data has been fixed in .NET Framework 2.0 beta. Please read http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/2005/04/19/409699.aspx for more information.

Prerequisites

You will need a few things to complete this tutorial:

1. The Microsoft .NET Framework SDK (required)
2. Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, which really aids in designing your Windows Forms (optional)
3. Microsoft Windows XP, the only currently, fully-released Windows operating system that supports theming and is needed for testing (optional)

Getting Started

Getting started is simple (though none of this is hard): open Visual Studio .NET and create a new Windows Application. I’ll be using C# for this tutorial, so if you’re using Visual Basic .NET, you’ll need to translate the code. Once your project is created, open the AssemblyInfo.cs file and fill-in the AssemblyTitle, AssemblyDescription, AssemblyVersion (get rid of dynamic versioning for simplicity with this tutorial), and change AssemblyDelaySign to true. You’ll also want to change AssemblyKeyFile to @"....KeyFile.snk", which is a string literal pointing at a file we’ll create (or copy) later.

When you’re finished, your code should look something like the following:

using System.Reflection;
using System.Runtime.CompilerServices;

[assembly: AssemblyTitle("Theme Test")]
[assembly: AssemblyDescription("Testing Windows XP Visual Styles.")]
[assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCompany("")]
[assembly: AssemblyProduct("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCopyright("")]
[assembly: AssemblyTrademark("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCulture("")]		
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.0.0")]
[assembly: AssemblyDelaySign(true)]
[assembly: AssemblyKeyFile(@"....KeyFile.snk")]
[assembly: AssemblyKeyName("")]

Now, open Form1.cs and add many controls to it, such as ListViews, Buttons, GroupBoxes, ProgressBars, and more. The full list of controls that support visual styles are:

• TextBox
• RichTextBox
• HScrollBar
• VScrollBar
• ProgressBar
• TabControl
• MainMenu
• ContextMenu
• ComboBox
• DataGrid
• ListBox
• ListView
• TreeView
• DateTimePicker
• MonthCalendar
• Splitter
• TrackBar
• StatusBar
• ToolBar
• TreeView
• ListView

Of these controls, several support theming by default. Others — specifically the ones that derive from ButtonBase, GroupBox, or Label — require that you set the FlatStyle property to System, which I’ll explain shortly.

Once you’ve compiled your application, you’ll noticed that the visual style of Windows Forms does not look like the Windows XP Visual Style. To figure out why, read on.

Simply put: Comctl32.dll, version 6. Comctl32.dll, or the Common Controls, have been around for a very long time. This library provided basic common controls while User32.dll provided user controls. In version 6 of the Common Controls, all of the controls were put in Comctl32.dll so that all the controls could support theming. Comctl32.dll, version 6, is not redistributable, however, unlike previous versions of Comctl32.dll. In order to use the new Windows XP Visual Styles, you must be using an operating system that contains Comctl32.dll, such as Windows XP.

For supported controls, the control style is associated with a particular theme resource that is drawn in the client area of the control. For controls deriving from ButtonBase, GroupBox, and Label, these controls must use the FlatStyle.System enumeration member in their FlatStyle property so that they allow the operating system to draw the controls.

In order to tell Windows to use theming for your controls, you need to tell Windows to bind to Comctl32.dll, version 6. By default, Windows binds to Comctl32.dll, version 5. Similar to the binding policies of .NET, however, we can tell executables at runtime to bind to other assemblies, or Win32 libraries in this case.

So, add a new XML file to your project and call it [YourApp].exe.manifest, where [YourApp] is the name of the output file your project generates, which is your project name by default. Set the Compile Type to «None», since we’ll only including this in your project for simplicity.

If you used the AssemblyInfo.cs code above, your newly created [YourApp].exe.manifest should look like:

="1.0"="UTF-8"="yes"
<assembly 
    xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" 
    manifestVersion="1.0">
    <assemblyIdentity 
        version="1.0.0.0" 
        processorArchitecture="X86" 
        name="Theme Test"
        type="win32" />
    <description>Testing Windows XP Visual Styles.</description>
    <dependency>
        <dependentAssembly>
            <assemblyIdentity 
                type="win32" 
                name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls" 
                version="6.0.0.0" 
                processorArchitecture="X86" 
                publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df" 
                language="*" /> 
        </dependentAssembly> 
    </dependency> 
</assembly>

You should replace the first «version» and «name» attributes with appropriate values for your project, which are the AssemblyVersion and AssemblyTitle attributes respectively. The «description» element should also match your AssemblyDescription attribute.

Next, open a command prompt and change directories to your project output directory, which should be «binDebug» with your project directory as the root. Assuming that you have sn.exe in your PATH (part of the .NET Framework SDK), type the following:

sn.exe -k ....KeyFile.snk

This should put a public key file named KeyFile.snk — which we referred to earlier in our AssemblyInfo.cs file — in your project directory. This public key is necessary to sign your assembly with a strong name, which is required in many situations and is recommend for every assembly.

Adding the Manifest and the Final Touches

You should now be in the same directory as your project output file. In my example, my application is simply WindowsApplication1.exe, which I’ll refer to later.

Now, back in Visual Studio .NET, click on the File->Open… menu, browse to your application such as WindowsAppication1.exe, and click open. You should now see your resources in a tree view.

1. Right-click on the root node WindowsApplication.exe and select «Add Resource…».
2. Click «Import…», browse for WindowsApplication.exe.manifest in your project directory, and click «Open».
3. In the «Resource Type» text box, type RT_MANIFEST and click «OK».
4. Save all files and go back to your resource view you were previously in. You should now see a folder named RT_MANIFEST.
5. Click on the newly added RT_MANIFEST resource, probably named 101. Change its ID to 1 in the property grid and save your application again.
6. After closing the resource view in which your application was open, go back to the command prompt and type the following:

sn -R WindowsApplication1.exe ....KeyFile.snk

The tool should print some version info and then display:

Assembly 'WindowsApplication1.exe' successfully re-signed

Run your application and see Windows XP Visual Styles at work in your .NET application!

Summary

Windows XP Visual Styles can be a very good addition to your applications and control libraries and they don’t take a lot of work. Supporting this new visual style will give your application a common look-and-feel with Windows, which is always a definite plus in commercial applications. Many companies strive to keep up with Windows standards and now you can do it without a lot of work.

Just remember to set the FlatStyle property of any applicable control to FlatStyle.System and to embed the manifest resource like the boilerplate above in your executable after compiling. After having done all that, you need only finish signing your assembly, otherwise it won’t pass validation if you specified an AssemblyKeyFile. If you need to test your application or have an authority sign it, you can turn off validation for that assembly by typing the following:

sn.exe -Vr WindowsApplication1.exe

Go on now, start cranking out those Windows XP-like applications and controls and make your products stand out above the rest. It doesn’t take a lot of work but your results are stylish and beneficial.

Windows XP themes are customizations of the graphical user interface of the Windows XP operating system. Luna, Royale, Zune, and Embedded are official themes designed for Windows XP by Microsoft. Since Windows XP, themes include «visual styles«. By default, the Luna theme is preinstalled on Windows XP Home / Professional, the Royale (Energy Blue) theme is preinstalled on Windows XP Media Center Edition and the Embedded theme is preinstalled on Windows XP Embedded. All of the themes are compatible with all Windows XP editions. Compared to previous versions of Windows, the new scheme has a larger emphasis on the graphical appeal of the operating system, using bitmaps throughout the interface with rounded edges on each window. Since Luna’s introduction, the scheme has been supplemented in Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Royale, and Royale Noir, a Zune-derived edition of the Royale scheme.

Luna

Luna (meaning Moon in Spanish, Bulgarian, Slovene, Serbian, Romanian, Russian, Latin, and Italian) is the codename for the default visual theme of Windows XP.

Officially known as Windows XP style, the theme is available in three color schemes: Blue (default) (codenamed NormalColor), Olive Green (codenamed Homestead), and Silver (codenamed Metallic). The code names for these color themes can be observed in the file paths.

Windows Classic

The «Windows classic style« theme is also available in Windows Vista and Windows 7 but must be enabled by the user. Users accustomed to older Windows versions such as Windows 2000 or Windows 98 may find it more comfortable to use. In addition to turning off visualizations, this option also offers relatively better performance and greater color and font customization options. The classic theme is also used for Safe mode and Win32 console windows in Windows XP.

Royale

Royale (also known as «Media Center style« and the blue color scheme is also known as «Energy Blue«) is a GUI art concept produced by Microsoft and introduced in 2004 only in Windows Media Center desktops and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition Tablet PCs.

It is composed of a new wallpaper (inspired by Bliss), a desktop theme and skins. The new Energy Bliss wallpaper is heavily inspired by the original Bliss but now is generated artificially with computer graphics (CG) rendering.

The concept presents a brilliant, relucent, vivid and faux-reflective color scheme with intense blue and green colors, somewhat reminiscent of the default blue Microsoft Office 2003 theme. Parts of the theme also compliment with the look of Windows Media Player 10 and Windows Media Center. The theme also foreshadows the look of Windows Vista, released two years later.

Availability

The Energy Blue theme was originally made available in December 2004. On April 7, 2005, Microsoft New Zealand^[1] had made the Royale theme and the wallpapers for the New Zealand theme available for download^[2] for all editions of XP through Windows Genuine Advantage on its website but no longer exists in 2019. Because of the freeware nature of this package, it had also been available on software download websites, such as Softpedia at one time.^[3]

Microsoft did also release a Windows Media Player visualization and skin at one time. The skin was released in Experience Pack for Tablet PC and was available for free,^[4] but the installer only installed it on Windows XP Tablet PC Edition devices, for which it was licensed.

Royale Noir

The Royale Noir theme looks like a darkened version of Energy Blue, having a blackish and bluish to purple tint. Royale Noir has a black start button, which changes to green when the mouse hovers over it.

As Royale Noir was leaked and not finalized by Microsoft, it has been noted for some imperfections.

In 2006, oddbasket developed a finalized version of the theme known as Royale Remixed. A common misconception is that Royale Noir and Royale Remixed are the same theme.

Zune theme

A few weeks after Royale Noir was leaked, Zune was officially released as a new desktop theme to accompany the release of Microsoft’s new Zune media player. Just like Royale Noir, Zune appears to be based on the Energy Blue theme. Zune displayed a brown to light shadow style. The Zune theme was the first to include a different color start button from the green XP one or the original grey one from the Classic theme.

It is not known whether or not Royale Noir was a beta for Zune.

Embedded theme

The “Embedded” theme was taken from “Windows Embedded Standard CTP Refresh” edition. It is similar to Energy Blue, featuring a mix of dark blue colors combined with a new wallpaper.

Third-party themes

Windows only loads a visual style that bears a valid Microsoft digital certificate.^[5] As such, third-party visual styles can only be used if one of the Windows files called uxtheme.dll is altered to allow unsigned visual styles.^[6][7] Microsoft is aware of such a practice and suggests obtaining a newer revision of the patched uxtheme.dll file in case problems occur after Microsoft’s own updates to the file have been applied (typically through an OS service pack).^[8]

References

See also

• Features new to Windows XP
• Windows Aero

External links

• Windows XP visual styles at Wikipedia

Customizing the appearance of your Windows installation can be frustrating, because both Windows XP and Vista are limited to the Microsoft’s default themes out of the box. However, with a bit of tweaking under the hood, your Windows setup can try on a wider range of looks than come pre-installed. Let’s take a look at how to patch your Windows installation to allow customized styles, and a few places to find new and interesting styles online.

Vocabulary and Methods

When talking about the physical appearance of Windows there are two terms that are distinct but often used incorrectly in place of each other. Visual styles, which have the .msstyles file extension, are the files which supply all the information about how the interfaces within Windows should look. The toolbar skin, start button skin, borders, buttons, etc. are all stored in the visual style. Themes contain a visual style along with additional settings such as icons, wallpaper, etc. Later, when browsing for goodies, keep in mind that a theme pack will have further customization than a visual style pack. Throughout the tutorial you’ll need to be able to access the menu within Windows where you can change your themes and visual styles. The following screenshots are from Windows XP but the essential menus are nearly identical in function in Vista, too. For reference, here is how to access both: XP: Right-click Desktop -> Properties -> Themes Tab (or Appearance Tab for Styles) Vista: Right-click Desktop — > Personalize -> Themes

First, Back Up Your Current Theme For Safe Keeping And Create A Restore Point

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Although you’ll most likely find a new style that you really enjoy, on the off chance that you don’t, make a backup of your current theme for you to restore later if necessary. Backing up only takes a moment and will allow you put things back exactly as they were before you started customizing, right down to the wallpaper. From within the Themes tab click Save As and name your theme whatever you’d like. Save it in a safe place. Although the probability of something going catastrophically wrong is slim, it wouldn’t hurt to create a system restore point to undo the carnage if need be. Press WINKEY-R to bring up the run dialogue box and type in the following: C:WindowsSystem32restorerstrui.exe to launch System Restore. Give the restore point an easy to remember name like «Pre-Style Patch», Windows will append the name with the current date.

Second, Patch Your Windows Install

Patching your system for themes allows you to use non-Microsoft approved visual styles. At the very root you’re simply replacing the Uxtheme.dll with a modified version that doesn’t verify if the style has been signed by Microsoft. It used to be that patching your Windows installation was a hassle, a small one, but a hassle nonetheless. Now both Windows XP and Vista have patching programs available that make it no more hassle than clicking a button and rebooting. There are various programs that can do what the free patches do with some additional functionality thrown in, but they are hardly worth the $20 and up fees they command. For Windows XP, download the Uxtheme Multi-Patcher. Run the file, click through the prompts and reboot.

For Windows Vista, download VistaGlazz. You must download the VistaGlazz Beta 1.1 if you have installed Vista SP1, version 1.0 will screw up Vista SP1. Run the file, click through the prompts and reboot.

Both patching programs will allow you to reverse the process should anything go wrong by simply running the program again. (However, I’ve been patching Windows installs for years without a hitch.)

Finally, Download and Install Custom, Third Party Styles

The best way to verify if your patch job has been successful is to browse some of the great repositories of visual styles and select a few to try out. Below are some samples of the most popular styles at DeviantArt.com. Before you begin downloading through, a quick overview of where the files go is in order. If a style pack is zipped up properly then installing it is as simple as unzipping the files into the C:WindowsResourcesThemes directory. Check when you open the zip file if the files have nested directories. If you install a visual style or theme and something is amiss, check the following list to ensure the files ended up in the right place:

• .Theme files must be in the /Themes/ folder, not within any subfolders.
• .MSStyles files must be in their own sub-folders. If the style name is NewStyle.msstyles, then sub folder in /Themes/ must be /Themes/NewStyle/
• If your style pack came with a shellstyle.dll, that also goes within it’s own subfolder, i.e. /Themes/NewStyle/shell/
• If you have any problem with loading a style or theme, go back and double check for spelling and capitalization. The names are case sensitive. If a file has a combination of upper and lower case letters, the folder name you place it in must be spelled exactly the same.

Now let’s take a look at some popular third-party visual styles in action. Luna Element 5.0.5 by tornado5

Pristine OS 1.2 by MohsinNaqi

Sentinel Beta — 1 by chaninja

For more visual styles, check out the following resources:

• Deviant Art — Windows Vista Styles / Windows XP Styles
• ThemeXP — Most Popular XP Styles

If you have a little bit more time and would like to grab a theme hot off the press, check out the active forums where style designers throw up their newest work:

• JoeJoe.org — Vista Visual Styles / XP Visual Styles
• NeoWin — Vista Visual Styles / XP Visual Styles

What’s your favorite Windows theme? Tell us about it in the comments—or show off your customized Windows in the Lifehacker Desktop Show and Tell Flickr group.