Installing XP Themes unattended

[xarumanx]

If you are already patching the uxtheme.dll, why not installing all your favoured themes unattended?

1. Create a install/Themes Folder and put in all your custom theme folders (so for the classix theme you'll have a folder install/Themes/classix where the .msstyle file(s) lie)

2. RAR all custom Fonts in a install/Themes/fonts.rar

3. RAR all themes in a install/Themes/themes.rar

4. Copy the unrar.exe commandline Tool from you Winrar Folder to the install/Tools folder

5. Add the following lines to your batch

start /wait %systemdrive%\install\tools\unrar.exe x -inul %systemdrive%\install\themes\themes.rar %systemroot%\Resources\Themes

start /wait %systemdrive%\install\tools\unrar.exe x -inul %systemdrive%\install\themes\fonts.rar %systemroot%\fonts

You can of course also copy the unrar.exe to your %systemdrive first to save some typing, i think you got the idea.

The main point is, that you can save lot of space by packing the themes, bceause they mainly contain textfiles.

[Laus_Sane]

look "More CD Space" Topic

[xarumanx]

Thats where i got the idea from, just thought to give a little step-by-step for themes

[mortis42]

I just make a sfx and toggle it to silent install internally.

I pack them:

MyCustomThemes.exe

[*]\MyCustomTheme\

[*]\MyCustomTheme.Theme

[*]\MyOtherTheme\

[*]\MyOtherTheme.Theme

ect...

And them extrat everything to the 'Themes' folder in Windows.

;The comment below contains SFX script commands

Path=.\%WinDir%\Resources\Themes\
Silent=1
Overwrite=1

*I believe that usinf %systemroot% instead of %windir% will work as well

I haven't tried to load the theme yet (running the *.theme file brings up the Display dialog). I will eventually, but since I run Win2k3 you can't ue your themes until you manually start the service.