How to use theme resource changer

[razorsedge]

Theme Resource Changer Instructions


Theme Resource changer eliminates having to edit dll or exe files to replace the images in your explorer.exe, explorerframe.dll
and your shell32.dll.

1. To use the Theme resource changer download and run the Theme Resource Changer.exe x86 or x64 depending on what operating system you are using. Theme resource changer can be found here: https://virtualcustoms.net/showthread...-dll-editing..

2. After installation it will automatically restart explorer and you are set you only have to apply this just the one time and it will work for any theme that you setup to use it with.

3. To set your themes to use the Theme Resource Changer all that is needed is to make 3 folders inside your theme folder, with these names

explorer.exe
explorerframe.dll
Shell32.dll

like in the screen shot below:

Attachment 38541



These folders go inside your theme folder you have in windows\resources\themes\your theme name here


4. Inside each folder you add the picture resources you would like to use for each numbered the same as they are in the explorer.exe, explorerframe.dll and Shell32.dll. These resources must be in png format not bitmap. So example explorer.exe for the start orb and user picture frame, the numbers for these in the explorer.exe are 6801, 6805, 6809, 7013. Add those picture resources to the explorer.exe folder and place it inside your theme folder.

as shown below in screen shots:

Attachment 38542Attachment 38543Attachment 38544

For the explorer.exe folder you can also add the user frame png like so:

Attachment 38545


this would be image 7013 in the explorer.exe folder

Also in the Shell32.dll folder you can add images for icons in the shell32.dll as pngs there are many icons in the shell32.dll so I wont go into listing them all here but you may add images as 256x256 pngs for the icons in the shell32.dll just make sure to number them correctly as in the shell32.dll ie. 1 in the shell32.dll in the icons folder would be 1.png image in your shell32.dll folder

Attachment 38546

5. Then just select your theme in the personalization menu and now your start orb will be changed, your explorerframe buttons and other images in the explorer frame, along with the navigation panel in system properties will now all be changed to the images you have placed in those 3 folders in your theme folder. This applies to any theme all you have to do is apply the theme normally. No more editing dll's to replace your images.

6. This applies to even the aero theme that is the default on windows 7.

Enjoy the theme resource changer

Information

Update: 21/04/2011 Thought I had fixed the problem with the drive letter but in case you are still having any problems getting theme resource changer to work then use this reg fix. Attachment 42088

[Mad--Rabbit]

Great tutorial and great program. I'm going to use it straight away!

[jayarte]

I am currently using VistaGlazz theme patcher, which has worked fairly well, but doesn't always use the theme's start orbs, etc (so I've been doing them separately with StartOrbz). Anyway, the software you have described sounds much simpler, and more effective, but what do I do about the fact that currently VistaGlazz has been applied? Would I just uninstall it? Or have to change some files?

Any advice you could give would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Jay

p.s. If I do uninstall it, what would happen to the themes which were working fine using VistaGlazz?

[Big V]

i have both vista glass and theme resource changer installed with no problems

[jayarte]

Ah, I understand now, I obviously had misunderstood exactly what theme resource changer does. Thanks for the posts, guys, now to try it out ^^

[jayarte]

Actually, sorry to be a bit thick, but where do I get the images from? Also, some of my themes come with icon, navigation buttons etc, but they just don't get applied. And when I tried doing it once (following instructions by theme maker) by altering shell32.dll to shell32.dllbak, I crashed my pc because I was tired (and stupid, I admit) and missed out the "."