Simple classic theme windows 10

Deprecation notice

Simple Classic Theme is no longer actively being developed. The SCT website will remain archived until the 28th of June 2024 to ensure installed systems do not break. After that, an archive will be created elsewhere. For more information, see this post.

The list of projects that will no longer be developed for is: Simple Classic Theme, Simple Classic Theme Taskbar (previously deprecated but still received infrequent updates), Leet.ClassicTheme.Taskbar (project not announced here) and components of SCT that I was going to release in a separate project (Leet’s Toolkit), which includes Leet.ClassicTheme.SystemResources (scripted resource replacement), Leet.ClassicTheme.MultiUser (MCT) and Leet.ClassicTheme.Theming (desk.cpl replacement).

As I said in the linked post, I want to thank everyone for all the support I have received through the years. Developing Simple Classic Theme has been such a great experience for me and most of it is thanks to this awesome community. Not only has it been a cool experience, I have learned an unfathomable amount of knowledge from hosting and developing the project and interacting with the community. 

Note that this is not a ‘goodbye’ from me, Leet. For now the only project I am working on is Panther2K, which is going great and it will soon get its own post on the forum as well. I have some other stuff planned as well which I have not announced yet and I will be active on ClassicServ and partially on WinClassic as well.

xx Anis

Original post archive:

Basically, I saw this thread which is an amazing solution for Classic Theme and decided I wanted to create a GUI for it. It’s a simple .NET app which does the following things:

• Installs and configures either SCT Taskbar or Open-Shell and StartIsBack to emulate a Classic taskbar/start menu experience
• Enables/Disables Classic Theme with a press of a button (or command)
• Runs Classic Theme in a way that both Explorer and Immersive apps run normally, without any bad looking theme files.
• Automatically enables Classic Theme on boot-up if it was enabled before shutdown
• It can install all these utilities when requested: 
•         Classic Task Manager
•         7+ Taskbar Tweaker
•         ExplorerContextMenuTweaker
•         T-Clock
•         Folder Options X
•         RibbonDisabler

How the Classic Theme works

Winlogon uses a shared memory section for handling themes. By removing access to this memory section the Winlogon process can no longer manage themes so the default theme is used, the Classic Theme. It’s better then suspending the Desktop Window Manager because that bugs out the whole system while this still uses DWM to keep the system running smooth.

Screenshots of GUI (v1.0.6) running on Windows 10 Pro (version 1903) and Windows 8.1 Pro (build 9600):

Command Line Usage

SimpleClassicTheme.exe {ARGS..}

You can supply an infinite number of arguments into SCT. It will first parse all of the arguments, and it will then execute them one by one.

I won’t cover all arguments here as there’s quite a bit of them. Run SCT with —help to see an extensive list of arguments available.

Guide (RECOMMENDED)

I have put up a guide on the new (not official) WinClassic resource site:

NOTE: If you get a skinny taskbar or metro doesn’t work on boot-up:

Open the utility again and increase the Taskbar Delay

Download

The application can be downloaded through the project’s website

Supported operating systems: Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (version 1803+) and Windows 11
Note that Simple Classic Theme does NOT work with ExplorerPatcher on Windows 10
IMPORTANT: READ THE GUIDE BEFORE INSTALLING

You can contact me directly on WinClassic. Alternatively, you can reach me with any of the methods on this page: simpleclassictheme.nl/contact.html

Suggestion : you can get any explorer.exe.mui from win8 or 8.1 www.pconlife.com/fileinfo/explorer.exe.mui-info/ take its resources and make a classic taskbar as taskbar.cpl cpls are compiled as dll’s then you just replace the metroapp with the real thing which is a good idea
another thing that would be cool is to do something Vista had completely wrong they separated all the dialogs from desk.cpl and scattered them so tabbing was no longer possible but you could get them and add back the tabs in vista style which would look awesome to do it easier you need to get the resources with reshacker use some of the reactos 0.3.9 version  of desk.cpl to make it functional (they ruined the newer one) doxygen.reactos.org/dd/d4c/cpl_2desk_2classinst_8c_source.html

As you see www.askvg.com/create-shortcuts-to-themes-desktop-background-screen-saver-display-settings-and-more/ vista have more accurate classic themed things then 7 but win7 is just a continuation of vista and with reactos code to back things up things should be up and running smoothly maybe even better then the real thing it would be nice to not be dependent on metro at all because it is a dying platform that nobody really wanted

Im pretty annoyed with openshell , it refuses to load all of my classicshell skins

If you went as far as writing a .net application, then you can manage the access rights to the theme object without using powershell.

The powershell command calls the APIs that any other program can do as well directly.

Well, I would love to but I have no idea how cpl’s and stuff like that works. Do you have any good starting guide or something similar?

Thats basically what I’m working on right now. Speeding up the application by directly calling those API’s

 Yes on both posts if you know what your doing it will probably be like lego .  If  only reshacker you can replicate the dialog but the number is hardcoded so you must use the same dialog number i tried it before but you could probably add the code into your dll project and nobody would be the wizer

The tricky part would be to look up the vista desk.cpl dialogs probably in explorer.exe.mui or shell32.dll.mui or even imageres.dll.mui or the real dlls get the dialogs modify the source code of the reactos desk.cpl and you got an idea of what your doing drive.google.com/open?id=122Wz40ac5o4YIVkmkwp0TcSVdxnqi5Bn  here is a hacked version of desk2k.cpl including regs that add a buncha classic systemcolors (schemes) its how windows did it since 1.0 no idea why reactos programmers didnt add that to their desk.cpl  (thats their only broken function)  but fixable  this cpl works on all windows but u get lots of errors cause the resolution changer is broken but it works fine in reactos  desk.cpl that i posted in this thread www.winclassic.net/thread/328/classic-taskbar-programs-win10-links

found it on your other thread and it’s awesome. It just doesn’t detect schemes but i’m sure we will fix that
B: it’s sounds really cool to do but i don’t see how this can be helpful for my program. i mean it’s all cool, but my program now «just works». i’m really just looking for ways to make the utility faster and easier. but i do find this interesting though i just think we should continue this in a seperate thread.

Do you know what API’s are being called? I can’t find any reference of Set-NtObjectDescriptor in the source code of NtObjectManager.

Oh sorry this is the win2k version i should update my post to add it you get the theme schemes included helps a lot drive.google.com/file/d/122Wz40ac5o4YIVkmkwp0TcSVdxnqi5Bn/view?usp=sharing I added it to my megathread , thats where all the cool reversing metro-stuff will end up and people will be able to get back to a real desktop instead of all this fake metrostuff that killed windowsphone .

Because it’s Set-NtSecurityDescriptor, not Set-NtObjectDescriptor.

What schemes do I have to put where?

*insert facepalm* Found it but it’s seems like it is a terribly long process to backtrack and reconstruct only the code I need. Doesn’t anyone here know what API calls this PowerShell module makes?