5in1: Wallpaper, Custom Theme + 3 Tweaks, All From Runonceex

[Djé]

As the title says it all, this is a method to:

- Load your

Custom Theme

together with

- tweaks related to the theme,

- all from a small

single batch

- run from anypoint in the Install. Prefered and only well tested point being

RunOnceEx

.

* Theme (and wallpaper) choice:

- this provide an alternative to the well known winnt.sif->[shell] method.

- So far, I only found 2 old posts by Gosh (

question

&

answer

, link) related to this way of doing but more than 2 years old. Nothing new under the sun!

- I did not find necessary one of the reg key he uses.

But my own theme is a very small thing, so it may be used in other situations.

Corresponding key is commented out in the batch.

- IMHO, this method is more flexible than the deeply integrated [shell] one.

It even can be used when creating new users, outside any unattended windows installation.

-The new user can have its very

own theme

set automatically.

-No need to share yours with your litle sister (or colleague) anymore!

* Tweaks:

- There again, I did not invent much. It's just annoying things that are still arround because their solutions is not standard and/or have pop-up recently:

1- The ungraceful

white background

behind

menu items

after applying a custom theme.

BoardBabe recently

found

a solution about it.

The cure can only be applied

after

the

Theme manager

has finished (after first RunOnceEx)

2- SmallIcons reg key (windows Explorer toolbars): doesn't work when applied to HKCU before desktop is loaded (T12, RunOnceEx, etc.).

Thanks to minalgar, the workaround was to use HKLM, meaning One-Size-Fits-All.

This tweak is applied

later

to HKCU, allowing

every user

to load its

own setting

automatically, just like for the theme.

3- Custom Theme is applied through an HKLM key before the Theme manager builds the actual theme keys from it.

HKLM means -again- all-users-the-same.

The 3rd tweak

cleans

that mess by removing the HKLM key

afterward

.

- These 3 tweaks work by importing the reg keys AFTER the Theme Manager and desktop (?) are loaded.

- A

2nd cmd file

is written on-the-fly in the

startup

program

group

.

- Progs in that group will be processed after RunOnceEx.

- In fact, they will be processed even

after Theme Manager

. bingo !

- The 2nd batch file imports the keys and then deletes itself.

-

Et Voilà!

-<edit cause=found>Credit for that startup thing goes goes to AndeK & blinkdt.-And of course, thanks to Zilexa puting me on the right track, this whole thing is language independant.

* RunOnceEx is the prefered time,

-especially if you set also your wallpaper this way:

- its key is in

HKCU

so if it is applied

before

your

first logon

:

--> it will go to the

HKU/.DEFAULT

hive (No User Hive),

--> then to the

Default User

Hive

--> and eventually to

your profile

.

-The first one is just plain registry pollution, the second imposes your setting to other users while

only

the last one is necessary if you care about that.

-The good time slot is thus quite short:

- after user

first login

,

- but before

Theme Manager

loads.

-I'm affraid that this leaves only one possibility...

- <POV>If, like me you love that green hill, with the mountains in the far, and those litle clo<Shut up!>, then you can call this batch from any point during install.

But IMHO, puting it in RunOnceEx is more 'pro' since that makes a sharper discrimination between OS setup (in the first place), and customization (later). Now, that's just a POV.

</POV>

* USAGE:

- The 5 actions performed by the batch are all optional.

The batch itself is optional (but why are you still reading then?).

--> Edit the 5 simple settings in it config section.

- Attached is a zip containing:

- the batch file together with

- a folder to store you theme stuff (mine is provided as an example).

-Its content will be copied to %SystemRoot%\Resources\Themes).

-If you load a theme, keep it side by side with the batch and put them with your other apps to install.

-Otherwise you don't need the folder.

-Wallpaper, if used, goes parallel to the batch (not in the folder).

Ijou desu

suggestion, criticism and feedback wecome.

ThemeRunOnceEx.zip

Edited April 1, 2006 by Djé

[spazmire11]

qusetion:

is this effective on first logon or do you have to restart to see the changes?

also can this be run from svcpack? like from a addon?

[Djé]

Answers:

1 You don't need to reboot. It works straight on.

Reboot may only be required by other install. In that case only, try to give this thing enough time before reboot. Anyway, if it has not finished, it won't be deleted and start over at the next reboot and do the job.

It is very stubborn indeed! I am just discovering that as I am writing

I wrote a warning inside the file about giving it enough time, but in fact it is not even required !

This is true for the startup part.

The RunOnceEx part has to complete. But there is no obvious reason why it should not.

2 svcpack ... addon ... this is all black magic to me. I'm trying to get rid of them ! No more deep integration !

Seriously, I don't know exactly when svcpack in processed, but if it is after start menu is built and HKLM is accessible, theme & tweaks should work fine. Wallpaper also if HKCU maps to HKU/.DEFAULT but that is dirty!

[Delprat]

Great work

I don't know exactly when svcpack in processed, but if it is after start menu is built and HKLM is accessible, theme & tweaks should work fine. Wallpaper also if HKCU maps to HKU/.DEFAULT but that is dirty!

start menu is built right after svcpack

i think cmdlines.txt is executed after...

EDIT: just seen "call it from T-12" in your batch...

There's a feature left :

IF %SmallIcons%.==yes. GOTO Tweaks

it should be "1" instead of "yes", shouldn't it ?

Edited April 1, 2006 by Delprat

[Djé]

There's a feature left :

IF %SmallIcons%.==yes. GOTO Tweaks

it should be "1" instead of "yes", shouldn't it ?

See, that's the problem with enthusiasm, it makes you stay awake far too long and make some last minute cosmetic changes which bugs what was running smooth before. Hopefully this one is not that much of an issue.

I really though I had double checked specifically all the instances of this 'yes', but indeed, it should be a 1 now.

Thanks Delprat, and I also updated the CHCP thing to take care of the non-850 cmd code pages (shouldn't be an issue in most cases), as you adviced. I will investigate further for the 1252 one (shouldn't be an issue either).

Download updated in the first post.

[ZileXa]

This is interesting!

Last year I created 2 new things for in the Control Panel (in the appropiate catagory, don't know the English name):

- Logindialogs & Visual Extra's

- XPize modify icons on Desktop

The first allows you to change theme, wich will not only change theme but also the Loginscreen + shutdown/logoff Dialogs (it will change them to a style that fits the theme, only have a black style and a XPize blue style for the Dialogs).

I created this using WIHU (gives you the option to choose)

The second just starts XPize Settings.

They are meant to be used by every pc user.. it is not for runonceex... and it is very basic... requires the dialog/loginscreenfiles to be in a 7z archive on the pc... but whoever is intested, I will put it on a site or something some day.

Edited April 2, 2006 by ZileXa

[laura]

>>%UPM_CMD% ECHO ::Bye cruel world
>>%UPM_CMD% ECHO DEL /Q /F %%0
>>%UPM_CMD% ECHO EXIT
: --------------------- Tweaks end. --------------------

EXIT

1. too many exits (anyway they are not executed)

2. imho DEL /Q /F %%0 need to change to DEL /Q /F %0 (maybe my command prompt is different but with 2 '%' the script is staying on the disk, but if delete one '%', the script is really leaving the cruel world)

[Djé]

Hi Laura and thanks for the comments.

I think you may have misunderstood how the the script works so here are further explanations about them:

Theme.cmd works by writing a MagicUPMask.cmd file to your startup folder (the path to this file is stored in the %UPM_CMD% variable).

1a. There is only ONE exit:

Every thing on a line after '

>>%UPM_CMD% ECHO

' is actually only TEXT to be written to the

%UPM_CMD%

file, not commands executed inside THIS script.

So the first one in your quote is not an exit for this script, but only some text.

1b. Why the last one wouldn't be executed anyway?

2. When the text DEL /Q /F %%0 is written to the %UPM_CMD% file (using the command '>>%UPM_CMD% ECHO '), %%0 is transformed to %0.

So the

%UPM_CMD%

script can indeed delete itself after doing its job.

Theme.cmd actually doesn't need to delete itself (or do you need all your installers to delete themselves?)

The %doubling here has the same reason as all the %doublings, like in a for loop: prevent its expansion as a normal variable.

Now, if this Theme.cmd doesn't work for you, there may still be a problem with the code page thing (if my memory is right, you use a non 'western european' OS).

I have a workaround (not implemented in Theme.cmd yet) so let me know if it is the case.

In order to test if

Theme.cmd

is actually working or not, without making any change to your system:

- empty the theme & wallpaper file names in its

config

section, and set the repairs to 1.

- Then run it.

- If you now have a '

MagicUPMask.cmd

' file in your

Startup

folder (Start Menu/Programs/Startup),

Theme.cmd

DOES work.

- Just delete this

MagicUPMask.cmd

(actually this is the '%UPM_CMD%' file) if you don't want it to do the repairs at the next startup.

- But before, look at it: you should see the

DEL /Q /F %0

and

EXIT

lines at the end.

Indeed, I'd like to know if your command prompt is different than mine: does yours can cope with unicode?

[laura]

Ah that my previous post was just misunderstanding, sorry for the raising an alarm