Hacking Uxtheme.dll - Watercolor Theme

Posted Wednesday, September 01, 2004 5:43 PM by CumpsD
One thing I immediately do on a new pc is get it personalized. This includes changing icons and wallpapers, but also resource hacking the run box and hacking the uxtheme.dll to support custom themes.

Today I'll talk about implementing the Watercolor theme I have been using for a year now, and got a lot of mails on where and how to get it.

First you have to modify UXTheme. This used to be somthing "difficult" but now it's easy. Get the UXTheme Multi-Patcher and run it.

As always, and on the left side of the blog, I'm not responsible if something goes wrong, everything you do is your responsability.

Normally, according to the page I just linked, this doesn't work on XP SP2 final, but I ran it anyway and it worked. Just make sure you wait for the Windows File Protection box to come up.

Next you get the Watercolor theme, unzip it and run WatercolorLitev211.exe, it'll install the theme and you can select it from the Desktop Configuration control panel. It packs with several colors, I either have it set to Blue or Ergonomic.

Enjoy your sweet new theme :p

A screenshot from a previous posting demonstrating the theme:

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Comments

# re: Hacking Uxtheme.dll - Watercolor Theme

Wednesday, September 01, 2004 12:03 PM by Jochen

THIS watercolor thems is so sweet! This tutorial is great =) much bettery then that Windows XP Silver look ;)

And again, gratz to the man ;)

# re: Hacking Uxtheme.dll - Watercolor Theme

Wednesday, September 01, 2004 5:08 PM by Derick Bailey

or you could take the easy route and go get something like http://themexp.org/ or http://www.windowblinds.net/

i use windowblinds, personally... and don't have to worry aboug "hacking" any system files to use it. I installed XP SP2 right on top of my existing WindowBlinds, and never had to think about it because it works right.

# re: Hacking Uxtheme.dll - Watercolor Theme

Wednesday, September 01, 2004 5:14 PM by David Cumps

Too bloated list time I used Windowblinds ;)
And the easy way is just toooo easy :p

But ok, if you want theme's the easy way, use a program from the above comment.

I'm convinced I want it 'native' instead of having a 3rd-party program do it for me, and I like tweaking and fiddling with my system =) (Norton Ghost = rescue)

# re: Hacking Uxtheme.dll - Watercolor Theme

Friday, September 03, 2004 10:43 PM by BertG

same here, theme hacking is actually more easy :)

# re: Hacking Uxtheme.dll - Watercolor Theme

Saturday, December 16, 2006 2:32 AM by Atul

Seriously, why would anyone even consider going for the super-bloatware like Windows Blinds when you can do it with uxteme.dll patching as easily and much more efficiently.

# re: Hacking Uxtheme.dll - Watercolor Theme

Tuesday, December 19, 2006 8:11 PM by G

Just discovered this by accident but another way to get some themes to use with your hacked uxtheme.dll is to install the demo of StyleXP them remove it.

If you look at the Appearance tab under Display Properties then check the Windows and buttons dropdown it seems to leave all it's themes behind, including a decent Mac-alike thing and the various flavours of Watercolor.

I don't know if it's relevant but I was using the Watercolor theme when I uninstalled StyleXP.

# re: Hacking Uxtheme.dll - Watercolor Theme

Wednesday, January 24, 2007 4:21 PM by Jason

Just curious, what are the two additional buttons on your Notepad's title bar?

# re: Hacking Uxtheme.dll - Watercolor Theme

Wednesday, January 24, 2007 4:50 PM by CumpsD

It's Ultramon, first button is span across all monitors, second one is switch to other screen.

# re: Hacking Uxtheme.dll - Watercolor Theme

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 11:00 PM by ZSS9393

I installed that on my Thinkpad, it runs great. Does it work in Windows 2000?

# re: Hacking Uxtheme.dll - Watercolor Theme

Saturday, June 16, 2007 12:13 PM by thomasvk

I used Style XP in the past and it stopped to work after a while because you have to pay for it. There were some workarounds but they were tedious and not really clean. When I saw this solution I was very happy because Watercolor is a very nice theme (my favourite!) and this provides a way to use it without much hassle or costs. Also I'm quite certain WindowBlinds and programs like that either modify system files also or otherwise disrupt the 'normal' working of the OS so I guess this is 'cleaner' than WB as you don't have to run an extra program.