I tried black Box for a while but that would keep crashing. i have a rather uncommon graphics card, a Matrox Parhelia 128. spoon in the way of performance but the picture quality is simply awesome. i didn't buy it it came with the computer. (its a retired  university CAD workstation, 5 years old. considering its age its specs aren't bad, but  by todays standards its pretty chocolatee. (pentium 4 3Ghz HT, 1Gb DDR Ram, sony dvd burner, etc).

anyways, i just use a vista-look pack. CrystalXP Vista Inspirat  Bricopack. it works pretty well. if you disable all the third-party apps it includes it doesn't seem to have much of  an impact on performance. the only difference i can see is that explorer.exe uses a little more RAM. I'm happy with it...

Does anyone know a good site to get XP themes?

MehHakker Wrote:Does anyone know a good site to get XP themes?

i use deviant art for my themes

xopher Wrote:

boogschd Wrote:

xopher Wrote:using a patched uxtheme.dll is the same as using explorer.exe as your shell.

if that be the case.. then yeah ..
im using a custom shell :)

lol the leaving out of a single word can so completely change the meaning of the sentence.........should've said "using a patched uxtheme.dll is not the same as using explorer.exe as your shell."

From what I was reading the latest build originally seemed to have Vista compatibility in mind but in the release notes it states Vista compatibility was not included. The seem to hint toward next version but who knows when and if that will ever come to life

No...He said what he meant.
Patching that dll allows for rethemes of explorer.exe
It does not by any means make windows have a custom shell.

If you look in your process list and find "explorer.exe" you probably do not have a custom shell.
If you experiment and end that process you might understand things better.
just remember to click run... and type explorer.exe before you close the task manager.

explorer.exe is how you open the folders and that stuff. Firefox and games will still work. a custom shell wouldnt use explorer, they would use their own explorer like process. I had Firefox as my explorer for a while :P

Yeh got a nice theme now :P

MICk3Y Wrote:explorer.exe is how you open the folders and that stuff. Firefox and games will still work. a custom shell wouldnt use explorer, they would use their own explorer like process. I had Firefox as my explorer for a while :P

yes but explorer.exe also handles the look of the desktop so if you close it and have no way to get it back up you have to restart

Slushba132 Wrote:

MICk3Y Wrote:explorer.exe is how you open the folders and that stuff. Firefox and games will still work. a custom shell wouldnt use explorer, they would use their own explorer like process. I had Firefox as my explorer for a while :P

yes but explorer.exe also handles the look of the desktop so if you close it and have no way to get it back up you have to restart

That's the whole point of the shell, it takes the place of explorer.exe, and restarting it takes five seconds. Ive never been in a situation where i couldnt open task manager but maybe you can't always, idk