Aqua-Soft ForumsIm new to visual styles and dont have a clue on how to apply them.
can anyone help me out and explain how to apply a visual style. im on winxp.
[help] Visual Styles
or the free dll patcher 
You can also install a tweaked uxtheme.dll. Download it in the system dll's package from http://www.jonmega.com/iceman/sysfiles/download_SP1.php. reboot in safemode, hit ctrl-alt-del and in the 'processes tab' select EXPLORER.EXE and quit this process. Now click file, new task and hit browse in the window that pops up. Navigate to the tweaked uxtheme.dll that you downloaded and copy that to these two locations, after renaming the originals to uxtheme.bak (you may also delete them, but if anything goes wrong, just rename them again and you're fine again.)
one's stored in C:\Windows\ServicePack Files\i386\
the other in C:\Windows\System32\
The uxtheme.dll deals with visual styles. The original only alows microsoft approved themes to run in XP, the tweaked will allow you to use any theme. Once you have the tweaked uxtheme.dll, you can download any msstyle and simply hit the .msstyle file to get the display dialog with a preview. hit OK and you're done.
Good luck! enjoy!
wow derek,
only now noticed the patcher... that's better...
anyway.. if it doesn't work with the patcher... my story's not in vain
yes Stateo the patcher is user friendly(no safemode needed)but basiclly it's the same thing that yours
yup, the patch is nice for users who are not knowledgeable in the area of system file replacement, or who are too lazy (like me 
).
if the patch doesn't work, feel free to pm me. i have several. 
Make sure to also have a read in the List of All Mods thread, very helpful information in there 