Anybody use this theme? Apparently it's an official Microsoft theme. http://www.istartedsomething.com/20061029/royale-noir/

Yeah its been around for a while. Its basically the same as royale just black.
I think its pretty ugly though so I never used it.

I like black themes. I have black themes for all my browsers. I never bothered to install a theme for the desktop though because I don't mind the default XP theme and I don't want to install the third party stuff that many themes need to work on Windows. I like to keep things light on the resources. That black theme doesn't need any (so it says). Do you just install this is Windows/resources/ themes and it shows up in the list of themes? Or is there more to it than that?

I got it softpedia I think and it was just a .exe that installed itself.
It was too bulky for me and its kind of greyish and not dark black. I use Luna Element 5 black on my desktops.(much more compact and its actually dark throughout.) You do however have to get a patched uxtheme.dll but thats easy with the autopatcher.(it doesn't cause any slow down from what I've seen either).

Got a link for the autopatcher?

I don't mean to but into this thread, but do either of you guys know how to get new themes for XP other than the ones installed on it?

I mean, like the one you where talking about, Anthony, not those themes for 98 and below.

Thank you for responding if you do.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/OS-Enh...e-Patcher.shtml

And a reliable link for the Royale Noir theme (your link was taking about ten mins to load):

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhan...oir-Theme.shtml

I used it briefly but didn't like the grey in common task menus along with a couple of minor display glitches. There is a fixed version which is much better in the second post here:

http://forums.hardwarezone.com/showthread.php?t=1442816

You need to patch the uxtheme file on your computer, which is simple if you use the patcher in my link above (literally just open it, click patch, restart, thats it). Then you can install any other 'visual styles' like the many hundreds at DeviantArt:

http://browse.deviantart.com/customization...amp;alltime=yes

Thanks for that link to the patch. Any possible problems using that I should know about before hand? Is it reversible?

It is totally reversible, just click on the patcher, it will take like 2 minutes, your theme will turn to classic, it will prompt reboot. Reboot and you can use custom themes from sites like DA. Then when you get tired, or when you want to install the next service pack just click on the patcher again, follow the prompts, reboot and your back to the unpatched uxtheme.dll.

OK. Once the patch is installed/applied can you still use the default XP theme or do you have to unpatch again to use it?

Once the uxtheme.dll patch is applied, you can use ANY theme. They shouldent really call it a patch, its a hack. MS made it so only digitally signed visual styles from them can be used on windows. With this "Patch" you can use any visual style signed by MS or not. You can still use luna, or the windows classic or royale, all its doing is allowing you to use any .msstyle that you download and put in your themes folder. So yes you still can use the defult windows themes.

That's what I wanted to know, thanks.

Thank you JD for the patcher. This is really awesome.