Is there a tweak/setting to allow me to have a different theme (not the luna blue xp) appear on an out-of-the-box install? I have the background and theme (with hacked uxtheme.dll) saved as a *.theme file.

Thanks!

you need to place your uxtheme.dll inside the windows\system32\ folder and then place your theme inside the windows\resources\themes\ directory and then choose as normal...

Right... the modified uxtheme.dll works just fine and my themes are in the correct directory. I would like to know if there's a way I can make windows use a particular theme *by default* on an unattended install.

the options you're looking for are under the reg key

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes]

*sigh*

http://unattended.msfn.org/xp/reference.htm#shell

CustomDefaultThemeFile = "%WinDir%\Resources\Themes\MyTheme.theme"

This option sets the default theme that windows will use, this can be a custom theme or another default theme included with Windows XP. This will mean that XP will not boot up using the default Luna theme, but with a theme you set in this option.

Thanks all... I read the Unattended guide such a long time ago, I didn't even think to look there. Well, at least now this thread will point future questions about changing the default theme with an unattended install to the link Tsunami was kind enough to post.

Also, thanks to everyone who answers questions that have a more obvious answer (like mine did). Some other message boards (in the LINUX world particularly) have a much different culture when it comes to these types of questions. You all know what I mean.