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woomis

Join Date 09/2004

Restoring Windows 7 theme to default

I have installed a custom install of Windows 7, however I find the "custom" shell/theme/button etc. style unquestionably horrid. I have tried to do what I can to restore the default Windows 7 theme however I cannot get rid of the buttons, the custom graphics and the scroll bars. I have tried restoring some of the custom dll's, themeui and other suggestions I have read about here and there, but it's ugliness is killing me.

Could I please get a hand restoring the default theme?

skinning

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Philly0381

Join Date 11/2004

+844

I think you will need to explain a little more about the 'custom install of Windows 7' before someone might be able to offer some help.

Normally you just right click the desktop and then select personalize.

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I think that is great advice! It is Windows 7 NVidia Edition, which contains a number of enhancements for speed improvement while gaming (services, reg tweaks, etc.).

Notice in the included screenshot the black bar where typically add/remove/uninstall buttons would be and the green sidebar and location of the information pane at the top vs. botton (it is green as well!). Personalize does not do anything to my taskbar, scroll bars and silverish buttons. The address bar of IE8 is all black until you click on it. I have tried replacing with vanilla explorer.exe, ExplorerLaunch.dll and shell32.dll's to no avail. I have tried patching uxtheme and applying any other theme to no avail.

Personally I think I am the point of no return and am looking to do a repair install in hopes of returning to normal.

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RedneckDude

Join Date 04/2009

+2223

From what Google tells me, this edition of Windows 7 is not a Microsoft release. It has been tweaked and hacked by others and it's hard to tell what they've got hard coded into it and what they haven't. I suggest getting a valid copy from MS.

Edit: I'm not saying it's warez. I assume you have a valid key. Just get a MS copy of 7 and upgrade over the nvidia one, using the same key. It should be that easy.

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The only thing I can think of is replacing the aero.msstyle to an original one, the scroll bars, taskbar,infopane and button images all reside in the msstyle.

The side bar image in the control panel is in the shell32.dll, so don't know why it didn't change when you changed files...

Don't forget you need full control over the files you are trying to replace, I use a program called Take Control (does not need to be installed), but there is also one called Take Ownership (that you run from a right click menu).( if you don't already have one).

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Bebi Bulma

Join Date 04/2004

+209

Edit: I'm not saying it's warez. I assume you have a valid key. Just get a MS copy of 7 and upgrade over the nvidia one, using the same key. It should be that easy.

I'd suggest formatting the hard drive and doing a clean install, only way to be safe.

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I mentioned in my second post that I had already replaced the necessary dll's and exe (using takeown and icacls). Also I am a Microsoft Partner and the key I have is a valid/legit key on top of this hacked up highly modified version.

Although the build and customization is very nice, the theming was horrifying. I ended up doing a repair install and was able to restore the theme to default. I appreciate all of your suggestions and wish that I would have had the patience to figure it out. I have my suspicions that my AV (managed ePO 4.5) was blocking the replacing and subsequent regsvr32 of the dll back to stock. I was unable to get into services.msc to turn it off as even my taskmgr would not open during the "operation".

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Glad to see you got it sorted out, but you may have replaced the necessary .dll's and exe except that most of the images you were trying to change back can be found in the .msstyle (by the looks of your screenshot was modified)...

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Gotta love WindowBlinds. No need to take an axe to a perfectly good OS to change it's appearance.

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I agree, it's so much easier to change the OS through windowblinds and skinstudio than hacking the .msstyle, explorer .exe, shell32.dll and shellstyle.dll and others which is way more time consuming even with an app called Windows Style Builder.( only positive thing about resource hacking is you can skin every nook and cranny in which is not possible with WB and SKS).

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