Well, I'm a n00b at this whole theme installation stuff, I've gotten through as much as I could without a good tutorial/how-to-guide. What I'm stuck on is that the little bar that shows the time/date/music/etc. is too small for me to read (example of the real one: http://www.litestep.net/upload/themes/Visions_Go!_v1.0_319126-1297.png ). And what I have is http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3040/2984678355_152d3d5691_b.jpg (ya it's blurry already in the pic because I have a 1600x1200, but it's still blurry for me). I already put in the font what it should be, and everything supposedly installed correctly, so I don't know what to do. I need someone to help me stretch that bar out or make it possible to see it clear in some other way.

Also, it'd be nice if someone could help me with putting my quicklaunch on the side like the guy in the original photo has. Much appreciated, thanks for helping a newbie like me =P

Hey from what I can tell(hard to see as image is resized(the text seems not correct)) the fonts have not been installed or for some reason aren't used. Find the fonts in the theme folder and go and add them again into your control panel->Font folder then recycle the theme again. If you've done it and still doesn't work I have no idea why the font meant to be used isn't used.
If the font now is correct and you only have a problem because the font is too small in standard all you need to do is find the theme.rc and find the line which defines that bars font size and change it to a larger one... but then you would need to adjust the images for the bar to have room for the bigger text without it looking broken. This will take a little time. Sorry I made the text so small!

Go to the theme folder and you should have a readme.txt that one says how to activate/use the quicklaunch/shortcuts things on the sides.

Though I see now I forgot to mention how you if they are active get the bars out in the open is to right click on the sides of your desktop and left click I think it was on the sides to hide them again(or was it the other way around?). There are 4 areas to click in. left and right side and the top bar has a right and left side top to show 2 different bars where you can have shortcuts (which you in turn place in correct folders in the theme folder) ...wait the right side had 2 areas as well a top and bottom one. = 5 areas where you can click on the sides of your desktop to show/hide the quicklaunch/shortcut bars.

AHA! I figured it out, I forgot to install BOTH font files, wooooooops... thanks though, I can read/see it perfectly now. I got the bars to work, the only way I figured to organize it was alphabetize what I want (e.g. - rename it to 1 Mozilla Firefox, 2 WinAmp). Anyways, thanks a lot for the help, I didn't really understand the .readme before, so thanks for clarifying.


By the way, I'd like to know what "windows theme" you use for this shell theme, because I can't really find anything good D;

Love ya :3

Well mainly first I used the windows Vista standard black/dark coloured theme that was hacked into the Win XP pro sp2 I had installed. but that theme disappeared/could not be used anymore after I updated to sp3. Though I did find that there where loads off extra standard Xp theme styled themes in various colours extra from the ones you normally get whit normal XP. I continued to use a black/darkgrey/orange standard Xp look theme afterwards, that one Worked quite nicely aswell. Sadly I have no idea where you might find that colour theme.

Goggle a bit and you might find how to get different coloured standard xp themes.

windrunner: Take a look at StyleXP or Windowblinds.

Yeah I tried Windowblinds, but apparently it just reverts it to the Windows Classic theme, I've found a suitable one lately, I'll probably keep it, but I'll try StyleXP. Thanks, guys.

It sets it to the Windows Classic theme and then you have to go in and pick a WindowBlinds theme.

Sorry, it still doesn't work, Devil. I even changed it to Windows Classic myself just in case but whenever I click apply the skin or apply my changes, it just stays as Windows Classic. =(

Oh, and StyleXP didn't work for me, I didn't like any of their themes.

There are thousands, if not millions, of themes for StyleXP...you can't tell me you didn't like any of them. That just tells me you didn't look long enough.

As for windowblinds...I was going to see what all needed to be done but I don't have it on the laptop. I'll look at it more when I get home if I get a chance.

It's way too complicated for StyleXP, too much effort to download, and the program itself slows down my computer, so I'm just browsing around DeviantArt.com to find a good visual style/theme, there's a ton and no stupid program to install to use the visual themes. Thanks, but I'll get through it myself =P

The visual styles/themes that you find on DeviantArt require either StyleXP or WindowBlinds. Which is why you can't find a way to install them. There is no system overhead for StyleXP as it is just enabling the Microsoft Theme service to do its job without a theme signed by Microsoft. WindowBlinds does have overhead but you will never notice it on a pc built in the last oh 10 years.