Installing new visual styles

Currently, you can use new visual styles on XP in two different ways. Both options work
around the requirement that visual style files must be signed. First, I am going to explain
how to use, as well as the benefits of using, TGT Soft’s Style XP to use new visual styles.
Then, I am going to show you how to use patcher XP as well as the benefits of using it. But
first, I am going to show you where to download visual styles that can be used on your
computer.

Downloading visual styles
Many cool sites on the Web offer thousands of visual styles to download. Unlike boot and logon screens, you do not need to worry about the version of a visual style because they are not system-critical files and their format does not change when service packs are released. This capability makes downloading them even easier, because you don’t have to worry about screw- ing up your computer.

Check out the following list of my favorite sites from which to download visual styles. I think you will find them very helpful. ThemeXP.org (www.themexp.org) offers well over 1,100 visual styles for Windows XP. It is, by far, the leader in the XP visual style world. XPTheme (www.xptheme.info) offers over 300 visual styles. NeoWin (www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showforum 36) offers a great theme forum that has a lot of quality visual styles. deviantART (browse.deviantart.com/skins/windows/visualstyle/) is another good site for visual styles that has an easy to use navigation system that shows 24 thumbnails of visual styles at once. TSS2000 (www.tss2000.nl) is a great site from which to get quality visual styles. Although they require you to register on their site to download a visual style, this requirement is worth it. They also have a large collection of Apple OS X-looking visual styles.


I personally like the look of the Apple OS X visual styles but do not like trying to make my PC look like a Mac. My favorite visual style is called iBar 4 set on the WinFlag color scheme, which is shown in Figure 4-6. It is a nice blend between the OS X look and a Windows visual style. The iBar 4 visual style can be downloaded from www.deviantart.com/deviation/ 4650418/. Many more sites are available from which you can download visual styles, but the sites mentioned previously will give you plenty of styles, more than you are likely to ever go through or use. Once you have downloaded a few visual styles that you would like to use from the Web, you are ready to extract them and place them in the appropriate place on your hard drive.

Windows stores the default Windows XP-style visual style at C:\Windows\Resources\ Themes on your hard drive. This is also where you should extract all of your visual styles that you downloaded inside a folder that has the same name as the .msstyles file. If the folder is not named correctly, Windows XP may not recognize the visual style. Also, you will find that when you extract some ZIP files where there was a visual style, there may be a folder called shell. This folder contains other visual style data and should be put in the same folder as the visual style file. If you also have a .theme file included with the visual style download, you should place that in the themes folder instead of inside the visual style folder. When you have finished installing all the visual styles that you have downloaded to the themes folder, you are ready to set up your computer so that you can use the visual styles. The next two sections will show you how to install them using the two different approaches already mentioned:using the shareware Style XP and using freeware patches such as UXTheme Multi-Patcher.