Themes and Schemes in Vista - Disabling themes, Part two
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There’s another way to disable theme changes without quite as much heavy lifting as is the case when editing and applying a Local GPO. Because Vista’s themes are controlled by the Themes service, all you have to do to disable theme changes is to stop the Themes service. Sneaky, but hours of fun.
There are actually two ways to do this. One is by stopping the Themes service from the Command Prompt. The proper command isnet stop themes.
To restart the Themes service from the Command window, use the commandnet start themes.
The advantage of this is that it’s a rather efficient method for turning off themes without changing anything about the underlying theme configurations.
This command must be performed from an elevated Command Prompt. For instructions on how to automatically start a Command Prompt with elevated permissions, see the tips in Chapter15.
The other way to stop the Themes service is to use the Computer Management MMC console. Here’s what to do:
- Open the Computer Management MMC console. As with so much else, there are several ways to do this. You could right-click the “Computer” item in the Start menu and choose Manage from the context menu, for instance. As always, you could also type something likecompat the Start menu instead.
- There are three main nodes here: System Tools, Storage, and Services and Applications. Because we’re trying to stop a service, we want to focus on the Services and Applications node. Expand it, and then click Services.
- In the list of services, scroll down to the Themes item and double-click it to open the Themes Properties dialog box, as shown in Figure 4-25.
Figure 4-25. Stopping the Themes service with the Computer Management console
Now, you can use this dialog box to configure several actions for the Themes service. To stop it immediately, click the Stop button.
You can also prevent the Themes service from loading at startup time by selecting Disabled in the “Startup type” drop-down menu. This will prevent all future theme changes until an administrator either changes the Themes service startup behavior or starts the service manually.
Stopping the Themes service will have an immediate and dramatic impact on the Vista interface. It will cause you to lose use of even the Windows Vista Basic theme, and you will now be using a Vista machine that looks a whole lot more like Windows 2000. The Start button, for example, will now be square instead of round, and window buttons will change to a more retro look. And don’t even think about using Aero; an investigation of the Window Color and Appearance options after stopping the Themes service will turn up options that are quite different from those that are possible with the Themes service running.
To regain use of Vista’s many themes, including Aero, just select the Themes service once again and click Start. It’s also probably best to let the Themes service load at startup.
Next: Using Vista’s Color Scheme >>
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 This article is excerpted from chapter four of Windows Vista Administration: The Definitive Guide, written by Brian Culp (O'Reilly; ISBN: 0596529597). Check it out today at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.
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