Having a great looking XP theme displayed is all very well and good. But in typically style, I want more, especially when I have see more in the screen-shots of the themes I have downloaded. Not satisfied with what I have got XP to do, I tried to understand how to take it to the next step.
What I saw in the screen-shots was a skinned log off/shutdown/reset dialog. I had a look at some of the themes that I have downloaded and several of them have some extra folders with images in them. The images are obviously the skin files for that dialog.
It turns out that this OS skin trick is a bit more of a hassle than getting around XP theme digital signatures (see previous post about uxtheme.dll). There are two files that need to be changed and they just happen to be core system dll's. These two files are shell32.dll and msgina.dll. In each of these files, are five bitmap images which need to be replaced.
Firstly, you will need an application like Resource Hacker. This is what you will need to do:
1. Take two copies of shell32.dll and msgina.dll from C:\Window\System32.
2. The first copy is a backup, just in-case of a rainy day or you might want to go back to the original theme.
3. Modify the second copy of each file. The theme folder should have five bitmap images for each of these dll's. Hopefully the theme will have these files appropriately named.
4. Replace the existing bitmap resources in shell32.dll by replacing the resources marked as 14351, 14353, 14354, 14355 and 14356. Save this new copy of the changed dll.
5. Do the same with msgina.dll for the resources marked as 20140, 20141, 20142, 20143 and 20150. Save this new copy of the changed dll.
6. Copy the modified versions somewhere that is easily accessible like C:\.
7. Reboot and press F8 to get the boot options and select Safe mode with Command Prompt.
8. Type CD\
9. Type CD Windows\System32
10. Type ren shell32.dll shell32.dll.old
11. Type copy C:\shell32.dll shell32.dll
11. Type ren msgina.dll msgina.dll.old
12. Type copy C:\msgina.dll msgina.dll
13. Reboot and you should have new log off etc dialogs.
As mentioned in the previous post, you do this at your own risk and you will also not be supported by Microsoft. That being said, have fun.
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