If you have been using Windows for a long time, you might be familiar with classic themes that old Windows versions had. They had colorful window frames with gradients and custom fonts which were based on the erstwhile grey theme.
Such themes were available in Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows and Windows XP, which was the last Windows version which had them natively. Here is my port of those themes to Windows Unfortunately, there is no direct way to get the exact appearance of any of the classic themes, especially the ones which have title bar gradients.
Windows 10 comes without the classic theme engine. Microsoft has removed support for most color and font metrics and only keeps themes based on visual styles.
The Aero engine, which is the only one available in Windows 10 and Windows 8 , has no support for title bar gradients unless system files are patched. However, let's not go into that territory. I managed to get something that looks close to the original classic themes.
There is a hidden "Aero Lite" theme in Windows 10 which is used as the base for High Contrast themes. Luckily, it supports custom colors without patching or third party apps. Using the color palette of Windows XP, I successfully reproduced all 17 classic themes, which are:.
Download classic themes for Windows Double click it to apply it. I also have a collection of similar themes for Windows 8. Finally, if you are using the Classic Shell Start Menu , it has an " XP Classic Retro " skin available that makes the Start menu natively blend in with these classic themes. Another way to make the Start Menu look nicer is to use the "Metro" skin of Classic Shell it is shipped by default :. Do you like these themes?
Do you miss the good old classic theme in Windows 10? Tell us in comments. Winaero greatly relies on your support. You can help the site keep bringing you interesting and useful content and software by using these options:.
If you like this article, please share it using the buttons below. It won't take a lot from you, but it will help us grow. Thanks for your support! You can follow the instructions from this page and picking a high contrast theme along with it will make a good old classic.
In Windows 10, the situation is the same and a problem for many users, because the Metro design is not very popular and the customizability got even worse as it already was in Windows 8 and 8. The classic theme is an economic, familiar and well working theme that has been reliable for over 17 years until the release of Windows 8. Each one of us likes to decorate our desktop Screen with new themes that suit our mood and passion.
Today, in this article, we bring the 60 best free Windows 10 Themes that you can get and apply on your PC and enjoy its beautiful collection of wallpapers.
Having this tool will protect your PC against malicious codes, hardware failures, and several other bugs. Moreover, this also ensures you use your device to its fullest capabilities and performance. People of all ages who use English US as their default language can get a copy of these Windows 10 Themes and apply them on up to ten Windows 10 devices.
It achieves the effect of having the native Classic Theme working on 8. Create a folder for the Classic Theme executable and exclude it in your antivirus software if you wish to continue not excluding it seems to cause it to break on the next login whenever an antivirus detects it and quarantines it, causing an empty blank desktop to appear.
I recommend placing Process Explorer with the same location as your ClassicTheme. Install - Places the files: dwmapi. We may need these later on. Set it up so it only runs for YOUR user upon login and allow it to run with the highest priviledges. Note that this will keep the taskbar in its themed state which is suitable for Windows 10 users, until you restart Explorer. This being:. If you restart Explorer while having the Classic Theme enabled or have DWM off , you may need an alternative start menu to make things easier.
You can use something like Classic Shell. Pin Classic Shell to the taskbar. If you want to have the ability to configure your network adapters on Windows 8. No modern tile apps will work in Windows 10 they partially work in Windows 8. Modern apps will not work at all, not even partially with DWM off. If you want to get the full 3D effect back without those plain solid blue context menu highlights, use User Preferences Mask Calculator. Ignore the Windows 7 warning and uncheck the box for bit 17 Use visual styles on windows and buttons.
If you like seeing the dotted rectangle upon clicking a button, you can uncheck the box for bit 31 Enable UI effects. This will also remove that titlebar gradient and any visual animations. Blank grey space in apps such as Microsoft Paint and WordPad where Save and Undo options are integrated within titlebar.
The Explorer also has a huge blank transparent space. This also applies with DWM off. Troubleshooting dialogs and some programs including Microsoft Office have portions with transparency broken, essentially making the area where a transparent effect is supposed to have some sort of color fill taking place see through completely.
Killing the DWM negates this issue. In Windows 8. If you want instead, you can snag an installation of the legacy Task Manager look further down for the Windows 8 version which is also a part of the Windows Pre-Installation Envirionment.
The titlebar transparency visual bug can be worked around by using Resource Hacker. Load up Firefox. Scroll down until you see something that looks like,. Compile and save the modified executable. The manifest should now look like:. On Windows 10, restarting the Explorer. You can still click on icons though. It also stops the transparent bug as DWM is responsible for transparent effects. For Windows 8. B on the WinClassic Boards with a better explaination on this script than the simple one here that renames the dwm.
It also renames the files responsible for bringing up the search UI adds a. BAK extension to them, preventing the search UI from creating the huge blank space that covers right side of the screen.
This works fine in Windows 8. Also, I tried modifying this script to remove the timeout and the commands to rename the search UI to test it in Windows 10 and all it does it spawn itself back up again or leave me staring at a blank screen.
In Windows 10, the only way to accomplish preventing the Desktop Window Manager from being able to run is to suspend the winlogon process. If you want to try this out yourself, you need PsTools to allow the suspending and resumption of processes through the command line. This batch script simply: kills the Explorer process, suspends the winlogon process, kills the DWM process and starts Explorer. Note that things like Run prompts will let you run processes as an administrator regardless of UAC settings unless you kill Explorer and rerun it as a limited user.
You can allow the DWM to run again by using the pssuspend -r winlogon. If you use a touchscreen, accessibility features or multiple keyboard layouts, this not recommended since you will have no touch input or accessibility features available.
Also, most of the consequences of having DWM turned off listed here will still remain excluding the part about winlogon - you can still have your display sleep and be able to lock when timed out and secure desktop will work with the UAC with this method.
You may also be logged out somewhat randomly if you log back in from the screen when selecting another user. So be sure to save your work if you leave your computer. You must also replace your C:WindowsSystem32dwm. If you remove or just rename DWM. Also, you can use the suspend and kill winlogon batch script for the changes to take effect immediately.
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