The default Windows XP theme is called Luna. This is the rather disgusting blue taskbar, program title bars/borders and the big green Start button. It looks awful.
Luna can be changed to either Olive Green (equally disgusting) or Silver (the only which looks good out of the set for Luna).
Many people can’t stand Luna and switch to the “Windows Classic” theme. But wouldn’t it be great if there was a theme in between Luna and Windows Classic that feels “just right”? HmmXP is it. It’s got the perfect blend of form and function as far as an XP theme goes.
HmmXP works for Windows 2000 (will not work in 2000), Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. I guarantee you will like it.
The video below shows exactly how to get it installed and running. It only takes a few minutes and it’s easy.
do themes actually serve a purpose aside from making things look pretty? I find them to be a good waste of memory myself, especially when used on systems with onboard video.
That Codename Whistler theme is actually older than the Luna theme, and it was supposed to be the standard theme for XP (as seen in the early Whistler beta builds), until Microsoft saw MacOSX. I’ve been using it for years – it was released as the “Watercolor” theme. I’ve not seen the other themes before, but they look pretty nice too.
Oh, and I doubt that you can actually use this theme on Win2000, as it does not have the Themes service.
Yeah I realized that later but forgot to edit the article to reflect. Updated.
Great article Rich. I found this that might help: http://www.withinwindows.com/2009/06/19/uxstyle-core-beta-bits-now-available/ It might make the whole uxtheme patcher unnecessary.
I’ve been using this theme now for almost a couple of months, and I like it; so much so that I’m not going back to the Zune XP theme even. Thanks for sharing Rich.