Making Custom Windows 7 Themes: Part 3 DLL Files
One of the obstacles in making Windows 7 themes is that there thousands of bitmaps “somewhere” in the DLL files. Here is a list of the most important files and DLL files that you need to know of if you want to fully customize Windows 7 and create some visually stunning visual styles.
Custom Windows 7 Themes Part 1 & 2
Did you miss part 1 or 2 of our new series “Making custom Windows 7 themes”?
Most Important File For Customizing Windows 7 Visual Styles
.msstyles Includes the most graphics – this is the most important file you need to remember!
We will have a lit of important Bitmap files stored in msstyles up shortly, so stay tuned if you are interested in making Windows 7 visual styles. If you have any suggestions please post below.
ExplorerFrame.Dll – Custom Navigation Buttons
explorerframe.dll Includes Forward and Back navigation buttons, very important file for making custom Windows 7 themes – learn more
Imageres.Dll – Custom Icons
imagesres.dll Includes all important Windows 7 icons, for a full list of icons stored in imageres.dll, click here
Basebrd.Dll – Custom Winver
basebrd.dll Includes winver images – this is cool to change Windows 7 to Windows 8. Mess around with it just dont break it!
Shellbrd.Dll – Custom Windows Logo
shellbrd.dll Includes screensaver image and various control panel images, including the Windows Logo on the Computer Properties panel (OEM info) – important file for customizing Windows 7 themes:
Important images: Bitmap 1050 2050 3050
Tutorial to change OEM logo in Windows 7
Explorer.exe – Custom Start Orb
explorer.exe Includes Start orb and various images of the Start menu. One of the easiest files to manipulate to create custom Windows 7 themes
Important images: Bitmap 6801, 6803, 6805
Oobefldr.dll – Custom Welcome Center
oobefldr.dll Includes images of Windows 7 welcome center, which is called “Getting started” in Windows 7. If you want to customize it, edit Bitmap 1033 in oobefldr.dll
Timedate.cpl – Custom Time and Date
timedate.cpl Time and date – If you want to customize the look and feel of the Windows clock, you can use timedate.cpl for a really custom theme
Other Important Files For Customizing Windows 7 Themes
shellstyle.dll Includes graphics for Windows 7 Explorer status bars
ieframe.dll Internet Explorer images
wmploc.dll Windows Media Player graphics
accessibilitycpl.dll Control Panel
netcenter.dll Network and sharing center
desk.cpl Control Panel
gameux.dll Games explorer
Authui.dll Includes Windows 7 login screen buttons
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Do you want to know more about making custom Windows 7 themes? If so, stay tuned for another tutorial that will further explain how to find the most important bitmap files stored in msstyles.
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Oliver is the founder and lead editor of this site. He is interested in finding new ways to break Windows, find common errors and help others to fix them. Aside from that, he loves to fully customize systems with Rainmeter and Dreamscene, find out more about ancient civilizations like the Chachapoya, sharpen his digital photography skills and create software with a small group of selected developers. If you would like to connect with him to discuss anything, send him a mail!
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Your 3 tutorials have been a real lifesaver for me, being that I have never made a theme, and it was a relative (for a novice) easy way to understand it. For my 1st theme I did minimal changes, really. I changed all .dll without problem and I was really happy.
However… after resuming my normal routine, I opened Word and noted many “ribbons” (?) missing, among them “View”. Also when trying to save a document, the navigation pane shows blank (as you see here). The same happened with firefox (and I assume with explorer, but I don’t use it ) and with excel. My adobe programs are fine (it’s why I was slow to understand there was a problem, they’re the ones I use the most).
Being a complete novice, I did exactly what your tutorials said, not modified anything more. The archives I replace where imageres.dll, explorer.exe and explorerframe.dll.
I read on a windows forum that I have to obviously return thing to normal, but before that, I really want to know what I did wrong or if there is some other solution (I LIKE my theme, don’t wanna replace it ;_;).
Miztli, I think I have had the same problem some time ago.
Here’s what I did to fix it
Explorer Sidebar Missing
I did it… it reseted my theme to the windows default. Still, thanks for answering.
really nice tutorial here, but i really REALLY want to know how to change the window “frames”, it’s hard to find it on the internet, so keep up the good work ^^ !!
When is part 4 coming out?