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I've just released xpize 5 Beta 2, rendering this thread obsolete so I've closed it. Redirect all queries to the Beta 2 thread.

Hmm, I think I missed those bitmaps out (whoops), but can you confirm that the Shutdown selection screen has the new background image? As for those *.scr icons, I'll look into it, but looks doable.

Give xpize 5 a try, I'll be surprised if nothing happens.

Yes i can confirm that too. For the rest it's very good! Thank you for the work I'll need to look into that. Can you confirm the bitmap is in shell32? What's the Install Language of your OS?

What's that? An installation of mine went by without problems? I think you're in the wrong parallel universe, hood. People complain about my software erasing their harddrives and sacrificing their kittens to the elder-god Cthulhu almost every day via the contact form on my website.

Here comes along xpize 5. The first xpize with full SP3 compatibility (actually, it only supports SP3. So those of you on SP1 and SP2 had better upgrade). This beta is the first (almost) feature complete release that includes almost everything XPize 4.7 does with a few notable exceptions (but there are a few things in this release that aren't in 4.7). There's also a large chunk that's missing from the final release later this spring or summer: Missing from this release that was in XPize 4.7WinRAR and eMule application skins Some visual styles (but Royale and "Luna Royale" are included in this one) Updated file type icons for mp3s, pdfs, etc TaskSwitchXP I386 patching Uninstalling (sorry!) [*]New in this release Widescreen boot screen option (currently buggy though) Changes to the logon screen environment 30% faster than XIS installer with 100% managed code base (GPL too!) SP3 UxTheme support [*]Missing from this release that will be in the final Everything that was in 4.7 but currently missing (i.e. see above) IE8 resources Luna Element and Luna Blue resources Luna Element (and possibly Watercolor Emico) visual styles x64 support (that includes full NT5.2 support) Fully skinned and customized all-in-one installer. I386 patching Uninstalling Take note: the lack of uninstallation support makes this a feature-incomplete beta. xpize 5 shouldn't break your system such that you'd need to uninstall it, and System Restore support is there. I've also made a youtube video showing how relatively painless the installation process is. Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOZYWBV_s9Q Also, news on the Vize front: whilst I have three Windows Server 2008 x64 boxes churning away (one of which serves the xpize and Vize websites) I don't have any non-VM Vista environments to develop Vize 2 against. If anyone would like to assist me with developing Vize it would be greatly appreciated. Downloads: xpize 5 Beta 2 Anolis Package (*.anop) file Anolis Installer 0.8 Take care, David

I see you're using the "F1" version. I've updated the download link to use the F2 version (it's a megabyte bigger with some minor changes). Give that a try.

Sorry, my mistake. The patcher you've referenced works using a system I want to implement myself, but my knowledge of assembly (and reverse-engineering of binary software in general) isn't strong enough. Basically his works by opening up the uxtheme.dll, looking for the CPU instruction that does the conditional jump if it fails the signature check and replaces that instruction with an unconditional jump to where it continues on its merry way. This means it will work on any language and release of Windows so long as it does the same check or matches whatever heuristics the developer coded into his patcher. So there are four patches out there and here's how they work in comparison: a) WindowsX's patcher: contains the replacement files within the program and overwrites the original (whilst invoking System File Protection). Bad. b) Mine: contains the replacement files and overwrites the original using PFRO. Inherently bad, but an improvement on WindowsX's c) FlyAKite's: contains a hardcoded diff to apply to known versions of uxtheme.dll. Good, but requires manual updates when a new version comes out. Kite's hasn't been updated since SP2 came out making it useless for SP3 computers. d) Deepxw's: uses a heuristic approach to find the changes to make, then applies them. Best.

The Anolis framework I'm developing has full support for patching x64 files. I just need to make some modifications to the package execution system so that it will intelligently patch the 32-bit versions of system files if present. XP x64 is based on Windows Server 2003 (NT5.2) and not Windows XP (NT5.1) so a lot of the system files are different: shell32.dll has different Bitmap resources in 5.2 compared to 5.1, but there's a lot of common ground between them though. Fortunately I've got an x64 machine in my room so I can easily identify the differences and build them into the package definition file. The final release of xpize 5 will feature full support for WS2003 x64 and Windows XP x64, but the next beta, due out tomorrow, and it'll be public, is still limited to x86 versions.

Yeah, I've got end-of-year exams starting on the 14th of May going on until early June, and ge this: I get exams on Saturday now. Evil. As for the next xpize 5 beta.... tomorrow I've got a few things left to wrap up. Yes, tomorrow.

I tested it on my own computer which is XP x64 SP2. Did you restart your computer immediately after running the patcher and did you open regedit before rebooting? It is x64 aware and will patch the 32-bit version under C:\windows\syswow64\ in addition to the 64-bit version under \system32, so this warrants further investigation.

This looks unusual. Are you running the 32-bit version of Windows XP and did you reboot after installation? Also try deleting your IconCache.db file under %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data and see if that has an effect.

1. Yes, it's compatible. Royale Noir doesn't need a patched uxtheme.dll to use it (it's already signed by Microsoft), but it'll work fine with the patched uxtheme.dll present in xpize 4.x and 5.x (in fact, Royale Noir is included in xpize 5). 2. Those are 128x128 icons. xpize comes with a utility that allows you to up the icon size from 32x32 (or 48x48 in 125dpi mode) to 128px. But unless you're using a 30" public information display or running at 190dpi we don't recommend it. 3. That's an effect in just that visual style, which is called "Luna Royale" (unrelated to both Luna and Royale styles). You get a plain white angle-bracket style arrow. Other visual styles are included in xpize and you're free to install your own. 4. Yes, that's a minimalist start button. I haven't tested ViOrb so I can't vouch for its compatibility, but I don't see why not. 5. It just patches things during installation then does the rename/overwrite operation on the first reboot after patching, after that it's just like it always is. xpize 4.x includes a few utilities that you can choose to run or not, including an Alt-Tab replacement.

Actually, WindowX's patcher (the same as Neowins) doesn't apply a binary diff to the files, it contains all the files within it, that's why its a few megabytes to download. It isn't language-independent either since the bytes to modify are different in each different language SKU. Rafeal has agreed to walk me through the manual patching process later this year since he'll be unavailable due to other commitments.

This isn't an xpize beta, but something I threw together today. I'm tired of all the people emailing me about SP3 support. So until I get xpize 5 done, here's my own SP3-compatible uxtheme.dll patcher that doesn't suck. I could have been smart and done a diff patching operation, but for now it just uses LZMA-compressed DLL files from Rafael Rivera. It supports: Windows XP SP3 x86 Windows XP SP2 x64 Windows Server 2003 SP2 x86 Windows Server 2003 SP2 x64 In addition to English it includes language-specific files for x86 XP in German and Spanish, and Server 2003 in German. x64 is English-only. You can install the English version on any language OS, it just means that if uxtheme were to crash (unlikely) the messages would be in English and not in your installation language. Whilst I have an in-depth knowledge of x64 systems, I don't have an x64 system with me to test it on; so if anyone could test it that'd be great. Don't worry about running this on a production system since it either works or it doesn't. I'm having some DNS issues with the anol.is domain name so I've put it up on the xpize website. http://www.xpize.net/downloads/UxTheme09.zip Enjoy.

No, I've been busy with real life. Announcement: I've added in read-only support for *.res files, string tables, and dialog resources. I'm working on menus, then I'll return to working on xpize itself. I'll make a new release later today.

*.scr files are PE executables, so they have their own icons embedded within them. There's no way to set a default icon. ...unless you're suggesting to use this to replace the icons in the screensavers included in XP?

Where did you get the sources to build xpize 4.x? The NSI/XIS system is no-longer supported, but I'll see if I can help.

On my unpatched XP x64 SP2 machine the Energy Star / power resource is also absent.

Good news is CodePlex is back online. Bad news is that I've got three big pieces of coursework due Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday so don't expect anything from me until Friday 27th at the earliest. That said, keep posting suggestions and bugs. Oh, and mention Anolis Resourcer anytime you see ResHacker mentioned

For those wondering why the download links aren't working: it's because CodePlex is currently undergoing "emergency maintenance", which may or may not be related to the downtime experienced earlier on in the week. It's been down for about 9 hours so far (this also includes the TFS servers). No word on when it'll be back online, but I hope before the weekend.

I hate to admit it, but we've moved out to deviantArt, which seems like a suitable outlet for our creative works. Follow us at http://anolisfx.deviantart.com ("Fx" is an abbreviation for Framework, for those who are wondering) (BTW: I've moved some of the threads around. The "Yer Beta" thread for discussing the ongoing private beta is now in the Sticky section at the top of the page).

The bitmaps in the Power Meter tab are in batmeter.dll, there aren't any replacement resources for those in the xpize resources collection I have on my computer, but I'll create a replacement if none already exist.

I'll look into the MMC problems shortly. I'll release a new package shortly which will contain the rest of xpize including the visual styles, wallpapers, and some other stuff. I'll see if I can get it done before Friday. That will be the last private beta, the rest will be public. Thanks to everyone who spotted bugs and issues so far. It'll take me a while to recreate the bitmaps for Luna Element and Luna Blue, but I'll be done within a fortnight hopefully.

Okay, done, here's the updated release: http://anolis.codeplex.com/Release/Project...ReleaseId=24809 It will work with the existing package you've got. You should be able to run this after running the original one and it should fix the missing bitmap problems. System Restore is now added back in.