i'm making a theme that looks (almost exactly) like the explorer theme, and i am wondering weather it would constitute a copyright violation. i am making this theme to provide users with a familiar interface to start, until they feel ready to explore the customizability of litestep and change to another included theme, or modify the current one. i am using the same fonts as explorer, and using the same gradient and taskbar images. the start menu is also made from copied images.

if this could be a violation, what can i do to fix it, while still maintaining my explorer look? does anyone know where these images are stored, so i can reference them rather than including them?

best regards,
crazy2be

The key is to give credit and to create everything from scratch. Don't take a SS of the explorer window and chop it up and be like "TADA!" M$ over the years has not enforced their copyright as Apple has. We have never received a letter for any theme having a "Start" button. But to answer your question...I believe the images are part of the explorer.exe application so you can't reference them like you want.

yeah, how can i do that?
most modules require it to be in bmp or gif format.
is there a module to extract the pictures and allow me to reference them in the config? or is there a was to extract them without an external module?

and they are probably in a dll somewhere in the windows folder :)
i'll have to figure it out.

if i distribute the dlls with it (for cross-platform compatibility and to avoid permissions issues), is that a copyright violation?

I don't think you can redistribute it. But there is nothing that says you can't create your own images.