Using Custom Themes in Windows Vista

Are you tired of Vista’s Aero theme?

If so, then you should start using custom themes in Windows Vista. Unfortunately Windows Vista doesn’t provide any straight forward way to use custom themes.

Option 1

In order to use third party custom themes in Vista you will have to do a hack by patching the three system files viz, uxtheme.dll, shsvcs.dll and themeui.dll. These 3 theme files reside in %systemroot%\System32 folder. Fortunately you don’t have to do the patch yourself. It has already been patched and can be downloaded from the link below:-

Download The Patched Files
6.0.6000.16386_XX.rar (mirror) (32bit)
6.0.6000.16386_XX_AMD64.rar (mirror) (64bit)

How to install:-

Login to the system with Admin privileges.
Navigate to the %systemroot%\System32.
Right-click uxtheme.dll and click properties.
Set ownership of the file and close dialogs.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 for themeui.dll and shsvcs.dll as well.
Right-click uxtheme.dll and click properties.
Give yourself (or group) Full Control permissions and close dialogs.
Repeat steps 6 and 7 for themeui.dll and shsvcs.dll.
Rename uxtheme.dll to uxtheme.old.
Rename themeui.dll to themeui.old.
Rename shsvcs.dll to shsvcs.old.
Copy patched files into %systemroot%\System32.
Reboot the PC.

Option 2

This is quite an easy way with a software called Vista Glazz which automatically does the above hack(of patching and un patching) safely without the hazzle of you doing the work manually.

Vgmain