AkinsTech

I’ve never been one to fuss much with the Themes and colors on my PC. (If you can’t tell by now, I’m a minimalist when it comes to PC’s…less is more.) For the most part, I’ve always run Windows XP in Classic mode, with a fairly default color scheme. I’ve done this mostly for performance reasons. Simply put, the more visual goodies there are, the slower your PC will be.

However, within the last year or so, I feel that PC performance has finally caught up to the point where it is possible to run Windows XP with a true “XP” (non-Classic) theme and still get performance equal to that of Classic mode. Add to that the fact that some software refuses to run UNLESS you are running an XP Theme (PCMark 05 is one of them) and I have somewhat (reluctantly) relaxed my “Classic Mode Only” policy.

In 2005 Microsoft released a new version of Windows XP Media Center Edition. While I don’t care too much for MCE, I REALLY liked its theme. It had a more polished look with a blue “glass” color scheme. So while I wanted nothing to do with MCE itself, I copied it’s theme files and installed them on my normal Windows XP machines as my default theme. The theme was called “Royale” and can be seen below.

Well, sometime toward the end of last year, when Microsoft was putting the finishing touches on the new Media Player, they revised the Royale theme to include a black version, likely to have a matching theme for the new WMP….but they never released it. My guess is that it looked too “cool”, and with Vista’s only real benefit being its eye candy, they didn’t want to give XP users any reasons to stay with XP. Anyway, it’s called Royale Noir, and thanks to a Channel9 member named W3bbo for discovering it, it is available for the rest of us to use. It’s been around for almost a year now, but I’m always surprised how many people have never heard of it. Here it is…

I originally used Royale Noir on my home theater PC because it had a very clean look that was perfect on the big screen. Anyway, it sort of grew on me and I found myself using it on all my PC’s. Everyone who looks over my shoulder always comments on it. When paired with the “AquaTint Black” theme in Firefox, it produces a pretty unified look.

I think the theme does a really good job of subduing the graphical elements of XP so that your focus can be on your CONTENT, and not on the GUI. Or maybe I just like the black because it reminds me of my favorite place in the whole world…the Command Prompt.

How to install.

It’s pretty easy. Since this is an approved Microsoft theme, you wont need to patch any DLL’s like you do with other 3rd-party themes.

1. Download the Royale Noir zip file from here.
2. Unzip the file to your C:\Windows\Resources\Themes directory
3. Double-click the file luna.msstyles in the “Royale Noir” directory
4. Select Royale Noir

More “Noir” themes

Zune – Since then Microsoft has produced another theme called “Zune” which is similar to the Royale Noir theme. This theme was to coincide with the release of Microsoft’s Zune music player. Personally, I find it a bit too “brown-black” whereas Royale Noir is more of a “grey-black”. If you want to try out the Zune theme, you can download it from Microsoft here.

Royale Noir Remixed – This is a really nice theme based on Royale Noir which sort of picks up where Microsoft left off. It’s much more polished and professional looking than Microsoft’s version. It is also a complete theme, consisting of new mouse cursors, new sounds, icons, etc. It includes several elements which give it a look similar to Vista. While I like this theme, I tend not to use it for a couple of reasons…1.) I prefer a more basic environment without all the sounds and eye-candy this theme adds. 2.) Being a 3rd party theme, it requires modification of one of your Windows DLL files. While this is extremely easy to do with a simple utility, I prefer to keep Windows pretty much “stock” in that respect. Royale Noir Remixed can be downloaded here. Also you’ll need the UXTheme Multipatcher to patch your DLL.

Give one of the black themes a try…I think you might like them.

How many user accounts and passwords would you say you have? If you’re like me, you most likely have more than you can remember. Between windows passwords, server passwords, network devices, financial passwords, website passwords, online banking, email passwords and forum passwords it can get difficult to manage. Add to that the fact that I need to maintain several “identities”….I have accounts for work, accounts for home, family accounts, and accounts for when I want to remain a little more anonymous. And then emails. I’ll bet I have 20 email addresses….between domains I host, yahoo, hotmail, gmail, work email, etc…it’s a mess.

And how do you remember everywhere you’ve registered? Sometimes I’ll join a forum just to post one question about a problem I’m having, and then never return to that forum again. How do you keep track of this?

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