XP Pro Start Bar

[pritska]

I was wondering how to change the colour of the start bar from green and blue to something else, anything else!

Thanx

 

[NADIAZIPPER]

Are you refering to the top of the start box? If so right click on the desktop/properties/apperences/advanced button, then click on the picture to see what color it is and change it there. I belive it is the active title bar you are wanting to change. You can also use the drop down bar under items to find it.

 

[pritska]

Nothing there. I mean what is called the task bar, where the start button, quick launch, applications open are shown, and to the right, the clock and other icons are shown.

 

[skiflyer]

Right click the desktop, choose properties, choose appearances, change windows and buttons to windows classic... no more fisher price.

-Rob

 

[NADIAZIPPER]

I though you were refering to the top of the start box. The only way I can think of is to choose a different theme in apperence.

 

[pritska]

skliflyer,
I don't mind the fisher price so much, as the green and blue colours. I am using an expanded view of the start bar ,and want to change the colour, not the scheme.

ALSO I have changed the colour scheme of the "active title bar" in advanced, and it doesn't seem to stick. It only shows the colours when I minimise the active window, or maximise it. How is XP with this man!??!

 

[NADIAZIPPER]

How about in apperance/advanced, drop down to menu and choose a different color other tham the grey. You are looking for the background of the start menu correct?

 

[pritska]

The item I want to change the colour of is where the start button is, on the left. In the right corner there is the clock and icons such as speaker/ hotsync icon/ network icon. In between the two, it shows you the open programs, on to which tou can click to activate them.
It is NOT possible to change this from the appearance/ advanced menus!

 

[linney]

To change the color scheme, right click an empty space on the Desktop, and select Properties from the menu. Select the Appearance tab and choose a color scheme from the Color scheme drop down box. Besides the default blue color scheme, and the silver color scheme, there's also an Olive Green color scheme.

http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/tune-02.html

http://www.tgtsoft.com/

http://groups.google.com/groups?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=taskbar+color+windows+xp

 

[harshar]

Hi pritska
I was tryin to do the same thing...
I am right now using this option -
Right click the desktop, choose properties, choose appearances, change
windows and buttons to Windows Classic style.

But I wanted to get the XP style Blue color only for the taskbar.

Found a way to do this, but the result was not exactly what I wanted.

1. Right click the desktop, choose properties, choose appearances,
2. change windows and buttons to Windows Classic style.
3. Click on Advanced.
4. In the "Item" dropdown menu, select 3D objects

Color 1 - select color for background
Color 2 - select color for the text.

But this will change not only the taskbar, but also the menu background, etc (I dont know what else).
What I mean is if you change this, taskbar changes, and the Start menu also changes.

Hope this helps...
Cheers
Harsh

 

[bcastner]

Look at the products StyleXP or WindowBlinds.

They are inexpensive, and as you can see at their Web sites they allow you to customize the color and appearance of nearly every active directory object.

 

[hockeycowboy]

Are you referring to the actual start button itself?? I've dabbled in trying to change that because the green is just getting to be a little whacky for my taste. I just did a search and came up with a program called "StyleXP". I loaded it and it's halfway descent. I recommend registering it (by whatever means you deem necessary) I also uninstalled it and found that some of the components stayed around. Right click on desktop, go to properties, appearance, then play with windows & buttons. There is another way to change JUST the start button color but that requires hacking the regedit. It gets pretty tricky. You have to disable some processes that hide in your background and then load the Windows Recovery Console, move some files around, and eventually you get to the file you need. hehehe It's quite a handful but you'll learn alot along the way.

 

[Comtech]

Get StylesXP here:

http://www.tgtsoft.com/

You could do it manually:
1) Backup UxTheme.dll to UxTheme.000 (it's in c:\windows\system32)

2) Don't blame me if you screw this up, these directions are as is in their somewhat correctness and I am not responsible for the government raid that will happen if you conduct this change. I have tested this and it works for me and the 500 other folks who have used this method. Do not put tinfoil in the microwave. ;-)

This is very simple to do and amuonts to changes to 17 values and takes less than five minutes to do. This also assumes you don't have StylesXP installed on your system and that you are working with the original UxTheme.dll

3) Open UxTheme.000 in a hex editor, not resource hacker.

4) Replace the following 4 sections in the hex code with the values I provide. You will need to use the

search function in the editor to find the exact address within the file to perform each edit

Adress: 0x00009C27
Original: 02
New Value: 00

Address: 0x0000B624 --> 0x0000B629
Original: 0F 8C 80 00 00 00
New Value: 90 90 90 90 90 90

Adress: 0x0000B6BB --> 0x0000B6C2
Original: 81 EC 80 00 00 00 56 57
New Value: 33 F6 8B C6 C9 C2 08 00

Address: 0x0000B71E --> 0x0000B71F
Original: 7C 38
New Value: 90 90

5) Check your changes, make sure you did not use the letter O in place of zero. SAVE

6) Reboot to safe mode, rename UxTheme.dll to UxTheme.bak ... and rename UxTheme.000 to UxTheme.dll
"

Please don't message me/e-mail me/ask me which Hex Editor to use, if you don't know, you shouldn't really be doing this

Cheers,
Jim

http://members.cnx.net/reboot/