Slightly **** question

Hey guys, first post, etc...I have a question about modifying shell32.dll...

Firstly, Im wondering if there is an easier way than manually importing the icons and changing them through resource hacker...I wonder this because in ever visual style, there is always an ini file.

Secondly, what is that ini file for? Its openable by notepad and the string in there is fairly straight-foward. Im wondering if this is supposed to be copy and pasted somewhere or what?

Thirdly, is there an FAQ on this somewhere that I'm missing? I understand that posting questions multiple times gets annoying, but I searched and I can't find anything either.

thanks for you help in advance.

EDIT - didnt realize n double zero b was censored around here.

#310030

Your best place to begin would be to use FlyakiteOSX. It automatically 'injects' all the resources into all the system files that you'd ever need to mod (as there are far more than just shell32.dll) saving you the trouble and indeed the time of using reshacker and doing each file manually.

The ini file in a visual style has nothing to do with replacing icons in resource hacker or anything like that. They're just part of the theme and don't need editing. I use WindowBlinds so I don't know much about Visual Styles but someone else can help you further on that part.

This is the closest thing you'll find to an FAQ, as modding XP is just so vast, especially with the abundance of applications.

Steve Grenier's Guide For Making Windows Look Like A Mac

And welcome to the community. My advice is just make sure you read the board rules fully, take a look around at the stickie threads as they hold important and useful stuff and don't be afraid to ask anyone for help. Just make sure you've searched the boards first lol.

#310125

If you don't want to mess with Style Builder for modding Visual Styles, use ResEdit rather than Resource Hacker. Its free, easy to use, and is better at handling the .msstyle file type than ResHacker is.

To answer your question, the .ini files in a .msstyle file contain information on sysmetrics (colors, fonts, and sizes and placements of bitmaps) for the theme. The only thing you'll want to edit there when modding a VS are the fonts and highlight colors.

As far as the system icons go, if you don't want to use a 3rd party program to replace the icons and animations, then yes you have to do it all manually through ResHacker or ResEdit in shell32.dll. You shouldn't have any problem with your system by doing this as long as the only thing you replace are the icons, and you make a backup copy of shell32.dll for safe keeping.

Good luck with everything .

#310142

EDIT 2 - I figured it out...The ini files were for Y'z toolbar, not for the shell32.dll...Thanks for the help though.

thank you for your replies, very much appreciated.

They have, however, now brought up a few other questions. }

You said that their are some third party applications that can be used...do you mean style xp and windows blinds? If so, Id rather avoid that. Are there any other alternatives? Im using the UXTheme patch as it seems the most memory efficient.

Secondly, when I was refering to the .ini file, this file is within a folder (usually named toolbar or something) with all of the png files that would be used to replace the system(explorer) icons. This folder never seems to affect anything when using the msstyle file as Im pretty sure msstyle's are just a bunch of images compressed into one file that windows recognizes as visual styles..thus everything that isnt included with that (such as explorer icons and whatnot) is not affected...

I hope that was clear...

It just seems strange to me that everyone that uses the UXTheme patch manually changes their explorer icons everytime they change their windows theme. I just cant see such a dedicated community that seems to have apps for everything not have some automated way of pointing to a folder with icons and it just changing the explorer appearance.

Regardless, thanks again for the friendly help.

EDIT - oh, and I am already using FlyaKiteOSX...but id really like to install this nice looking windows Vista inspirat theme, that comes complete with different explorer icons.

Link [deviant art]

#310228