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Royale Noir


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#1 VROSA

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Posted 31 October 2006 - 10:25 AM

From JoeJoe.org site, posted yesterday:

Quote

Sometime after the launch of XP, somewhere in Redmond, someone on the Microsoft design team was in the progress of developing something for Media Center. It was believed to be too powerful for public consumption and forever archived in the servers at 1 Microsoft Way. Now 3 years later, a young hobbit man by the name of W3bbo saw light of this unheard of theme, and traveled far and wide to uncover its mysteries. One theme to find. One theme to upload. One theme to rule them all.

Alright, enough Lord of the Rings talk for one day. Devoted Channel9 member W3bbo spotted an interesting theme on one of the “people_ready” television commercials airing in the Kingdom. After some dedicated searching, he finally uncovered this mystery XP theme by Microsoft. W3bbo writes,

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During Royale’s 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.

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.


Quote

Without a doubt, XP Media Center’s Royale theme was a huge improvement over Luna. It updated the cliché beveled look-and-feel if XP to a contemporary glossy style, whilst keeping similar color schemes and layouts. In my opinion, it was the most usable non-standard XP theme available.

Royale Noir is an almost exact copy of Royale except with a dark purplish tint. If Royale was day, Royale Noir is night. No doubt about it, this is a ‘dark’ theme. If you’re the sort of person who likes bright and vivid colors, stay away from this theme.

As W3bbo pointed out, there are quite definitely issues with this theme due to its incompleteness. The most obvious being, the “Start” button’s hover and active states are unchanged from Royale, inconsistent with the purple tint surrounding. However, there is even a color scheme for Office 2003 so it will not default to the blue Luna colors.

Looking at it from the big picture, Royale Noir is a welcomed alternative to the extremely small collection of verified-by-Microsoft XP themes. However being incomplete, it is not recommended for the general consumers. Enthusiasts are welcomed to try it to stand out from the crowd, but even still, you’ll feel right at home with the familiar Luna/Royale style.
Download Royale Noir

Extract files to “c:\windows\resources\themes\royale noir” and double click on “luna.msstyles”. Select “Noir” from color scheme. Code-signed by Microsoft. No UXTheme hack required.

As I emphasize again, I take no credit for this amazing find. W3bbo did an amazing job uncovering this mystery XP theme, hats off to him!

Simply extract files to “C:WindowsResourcesThemesRoyale Noir”
Then double click on “luna.msstyles”. Select “Noir” from color scheme.

Note that its code-signed by Microsoft. No UXTheme hack required.


Forum topic: http://www.joejoe.or...?showtopic=2269

Download: http://www.joejoe.org/forum/index.php?act=...ost&id=1244

#2 talker

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Posted 31 October 2006 - 01:53 PM

I renamed the .msstyles file to noir and created a seperate folder "Noir" in the Windows-Resources-Themes folder so I have both Royale and Royale Noir. This is the first Luna style theme that I have seen (without the use of Window Blinds, etc) that I have really been pleased with. I have always used a modified Windows Classic in black. This is nice...talker. :)

#3 ShadowFox

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Posted 31 October 2006 - 02:41 PM

any screens I can't get it to work on the POS terminal at work :)

#4 ShadowFox

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Posted 31 October 2006 - 03:05 PM

actually I forgot I had the laptop with me today... installed it and I'm kinda impressed, however with a little tweaking I can make it perfect :)

#5 VROSA

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Posted 31 October 2006 - 03:31 PM

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ShadowFox Posted Today, 12:05 PM

...actually I forgot I had the laptop with me today... installed it and I'm kinda impressed, however with a little tweaking I can make it perfect


Yes its true, it still had some few issues to be fixed when it was abandoned, but i liked it !
Let us know what u're gonna tweak ! :)

#6 ShadowFox

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Posted 31 October 2006 - 03:37 PM

heh cause I'm wrapped up in Linux atm I dunno if I will but I have all the time in the day here at work and I might just fix it up.

#7 ShadowFox

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Posted 31 October 2006 - 04:51 PM

can't do it here... sorry... paint is pissing me off lol

#8 ShadowFox

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Posted 31 October 2006 - 10:29 PM

okay... after hours on ******* paint... but here's nothing :)

Same with the one before... copy into a folder on the C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\Noir

I dunno if it's signed or not where I edited it....

Attached Image: screen.jpg

I left the old one there for a before and after look.

Attached Files

  • Attached File  Noir.rar   230.73K   509 downloads





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