Did you try one or other theme as I suggested?

Change to a theme that shows them that way? Right click the desktop, click properties, themes tab.

 

If none of the themes listed there do what you want, you can click on findmore themes online, which will open your browser at a page where there are more themes. Or search the internet.

 

I use Windows classic, which shows them in grey.

 

If you're really desperate, you could try painting the bottom part of your monitor green and blue in the appropriate places..(only joking).

I want to change the start button to green and the task bar to blue. Right now, both the start button and task bar are grey.

The only choices that I have are my current theme and windows classic, but neither one of these will change my start button and taskbar to green and blue.

First of all, make sure the Themes service is set to automatic and started.

 

click start, run, type services.msc press enter or click OK.

 

In the services window that opens, in the right pane, scroll down to Themes. You may need to expand the window to the right to see the Startup Type column.

 

If that does not say Automatic, double click on the Themes service to open its properties. In the General tab, startup type dropdown box select automatic, click apply, OK. Restart your PC. The themes service should start on reboot and you should then then see more options in the desktop themes dropdown box. If it does not show Windows XP, do you have an entry that says browse.. ?

If the Themes service is on automatic, check in the status column that the service is started. If not try to start it. If it will not start, post back, something else is wrong.

 

Or go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/plus/screensavers.asp buy the plus! package, I see it has one theme that has the blue start button and green toolbar.

Start menu is selected and themes in turned on and starting up with windows in the services.msc run command, but both my start button and task bar are still grey when the start button should be green and the task bar blue.

I think that the reason they are grey is because your theme is based on Windows classic theme.

 

Did you check whether you have the file Luna.theme and a subfolder called Luna at

 

C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes ?

 

Note, to see these you may need to go folder options, view tab, show hidden filesand folders, show protected operating system files to see them. Also uncheck hide extensions for known file types to see the extensions]

 

The Luna subfolder should contain a file called luna.msstyles and a folder called Shell, which in turn contains 3 subfolders, Homestead, Metallic, Normalcolor, each of which has one file in it called shellstyle.dll

 

The above files and folders are the Windows XP theme.

 

If the Windows XP theme still is not listed, but those files are there, as I said earlier, there should be a browse... entry in the themes list, with which you can browse to luna.theme. Please state explicitly if you don't have that option.

 

Also check in C:\Windows\system32 that you have the files uxtheme.dll and themeui.dll. What size and version are they? (right click on each in turn, click properties. General tab gives exact size, Version tab gives version number. Mine are

 

Themeui.dll: 385,536 bytes, 6.0.2900.2180

Uxtheme.dll: 218,624 bytes, 6.0.2900.2845

 

Did you at any time install any third party themes or theme editors (such as WindowsBlinds, Style XP, etc.) or a modified version of uxheme.dll ?

I do have a luna.msstyles file. The windows xp theme is not listed. There is only one uxtheme.dll file. The size of the uxtheme file is 213 kb and the version is 6.0.2900.2180 and the size of the themeui.dll file is 376 kb and the version number is 6.0.2900.2180. I do not have any third party themes or theme editors installed.

Your themui.dll file is probably OK, although it would have been better if you had posted its exact size rather than the size rounded to the nearest KB (as I showed in the examples in my previous post).

Your uxtheme.dll appears to be the XP SP2 version, mine is a later one (added by an optional Windows hotfix, not pertinent to your problem). So yours should be OK also.

 

You did not answer whether you have the Luna  subfolder and its subfolders as I posted.

 

You have also not answered whether in desktop/properties/Themes tab you do or don't have an entry in the drop down box that says 'browse..' in the list of themes.

 

Please answer those questions, before I can suggest some more things to check.

Further to the above, if you prefer, go to

 

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm

 

click on the T in the top alphabet, scroll down to Themes (won't load or only classicis listed).

 

There are several fixes listed there including ones for Windows XP style changes to classic, which appears to be at least part of your problem.

 

I was in fact working you through the various possible causes listed there.

I'm so sorry, the theme wasn't set to windows xp and I didn't even realize it. What probably happened is that I turned the themes service to mannual so that it didn't start up with windows and the theme changed. Now that I have that solved, ignore my last post. I do want to thank you for your time. Problem solved.

Under windows\resources\thems, I have a luna folder, a luna.theme file, and a windows classic.file. Double clicking on the luna folder, I have a shell folder and a luna.msstyles file. Double clicking on the shell folder, I have three folders, a homestead, a metallic, and a normal color folder. All three folders have a shellstyle.dll file inside. Going to the desktop, right clicking, and then left clicking on properites, brings me to the themes tab. I do have a browse option, but no theme files to browse to.