Most of the people are using Windows 10, which had the same white interface since the beginning. Microsoft introduced a bare bone dark mode later, which doesn't even theme some parts of the OS. It's still better than nothing but actually, there are better options out there. Today I'm gonna tell you about one of them.
Please read the whole post before you proceed to do anything.
The place you can find those alternative Windows themes is DeviantArt. It's widely known as a website for digital arts but there are hundreds of themes among a ton more Windows customizations. I'm planning to write about most of them in the future. I'll take the theme I personally use as an example for this tutorial.
First you need to download 3 things.
The theme I'm gonna use is named 'Dev'. You can download it from the link below. It's developed by the artist named KDr3w so kudos to him. You can find his other work here.
1. Download theme (8.2MB)
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| Click here to download the theme. |
Please check if your Windows 10 version is compatible with the theme before you continue. Supported versions are listed right below the download button, and you can check the version of your PC by opening Run dialog (by pressing Windows Key + R) and typing in winver.
2. Download OldNewExplorer (272 KB)
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| Download OldNewExplorer here |
The second link works in the time of writing. Also yeah that's a weird name. This piece of software is used to fix the inconsistencies of Windows explorer theming.
3. Download Secure Ux Theme (217 KB)
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| Download Secure Ux Theme here |
This is the tools that's used to apply themes. It took me an embarrassingly long time to draw that arrow.
4. Extract the downloaded zip file in step 1, and copy the files located INSIDE Theme -> Dev folder or Theme -> Dev - Bighter text folder to C:\Windows\Resources\Themes folder.
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| Copy these files |
You need to have administrative privileges in order to copy these files. And you can try only one of the themes in those two folders at a time. If you wanna try the other one after copying, you can simply copy and replace the files.
5. Apply theme
Right-click ThemeTool.exe file you downloaded in step 2, and choose Run as administrator. Remember: It won't work if you run the application normally. Then check Rename DefaultColors option and click Install.
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| Make sure that it shows 'Yes' at the bottom right corner |
As you may have already noticed, I'm already using that theme so the colors are different. It show only 'Apply' in my case because I've patched the theme earlier.
Now select the theme you downloaded, and click Patch and apply. At this point you should see a change of colors in the Windows explorer, but not completely. We're fixing this in the next step.
6. Install OldNewExplorer
Extract the downloaded .rar file in step 3, run OldNewExplorerCfg.exe.
Now select the options shown in the screenshot above (you can try different combinations if you want) and click Install.
7. Important notes
- Before starting, create a restore point if you haven't already.
- Switch back to Windows 10 default theme before installing major Windows updates
There's a LOT more possible customizations for windows including taskbar, desktop, icons, browser appearance,... etc. I'm gonna write tutorials for all of them from a Cutomization Series via this blog. So stay tuned!
Leave a comment if you encountered any issue.
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