Royal XP Theme: Secret XP theme uncovered

[Micron]

During Royal's (http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2005/5/8/248) development (the XP Media Center theme), the graphic artists also produced a black version of the skin, sans the overused “glass” effect. The result is an aesthetic black skin named “Royale Noir”, it even works with Office 2003.

Since the skin was never released (or reached final adjustments) there are a few issues with it: some of the colors don’t meet the overall “feel” (they’re too purple-ish compared to the greys of the bitmaps) and the inactive titlebars are a little too dark.

http://www.experiencewindows.co.uk/images/royalenoir.gif

You’ll find it’s been signed by Microsoft and doesn’t require a custom UxTheme.dll in case there are any doubts as to its authenticity.

If you already have Royale installed, you’ll need to remove it as both of these skins share the same name.

This skin has not been released to anyone outside Microsoft, until now

Download: http://www.experiencewindows.co.uk/files/royalenoir.rar

Then copy the Royale folder. Paste it into your themes folder (for example: c:\windows\resources\themes) then double click the luna.msstyles. On the window that pops up, select Colour Scheme and choose the one you like best.

[cfryback]

Cool!

[xpgeek]

As someone else pointed out too on another site I read about this, it looks a lot like Royal Four, which has been my favorite visual style for a long while now, but not quite as good.

Royal Four here (Note this one does require a custom UxTheme.dll)
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/10955957/

[Maddy]

thank you both i needed a new look and i like the darker ones their cool

[Micron]

:)

[AmericanWoman]

Very nice! Thanks to you both. :up:

[odidio]

Thanks, I like this Royale Noir, it goes along nicely with Phoenity Modern for Firefox.

:)

[cfryback]

There is a new theme called Zune - which is similar to royale noir.

Free from MS http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=75078

The only difference is that in runnin Zune, the start button turns orange! Doesn't bother me, but it changing the desktop and other settings is a little annoying!