Desktop Architect is a

third-party Third party may refer to: Business * Third-party source, a supplier company not owned by the buyer or seller * Third-party beneficiary, a person who could sue on a contract, despite not being an active party * Third-party insurance, such as a veh ...

replacement for the Desktop Themes control panel in

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

, 98, ME and

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

. It is also fully compatible with

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

and Vista. However, in Vista, the startup sound does not work, and the Network Neighborhood icon has to be changed manually. It is not known at this time if this program works with

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

. On Windows 8.1 (Pro 64-bit) the fonts may be garbled to the point the system is rendered unusable. Changing the desktop colors (windows borders, 3D object bevels, scrollbar, etc.) do work, but the problem with text display is hard to correct since all Windows' and its applications screens are affected, and even rebooting or rolling back to a previous system restore point may be difficult. Caution is advised; since Desktop Architect allows the user to select which changes to apply, making small changes and testing the results in steps, like marking only the Colors checkbox, is recommended.

Features

Appearance

Appearance allows users to customize the Windows Classic theme by changing the colour of various objects, such as

scrollbar A scrollbar is an interaction technique or widget (GUI), widget in which continuous text, pictures, or any other content can be Scrolling, scrolled in a predetermined direction (up, down, left, or right) on a computer display, window (computing) ...

s, active and inactive windows, menu bar, message box, window borders, window frame, selected items, font colours, 3D objects, and a few other things as well.

Wallpaper

Users can change the desktop wallpaper image.

Sounds

Systems sounds can be customized and changed. Default sounds can be removed, or can be changed to a different sound file. When browsing for sound files users can preview the sound.

Icons

Users can change the system

icons An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, and Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, saints, and angels. Although especially ...

, or restore default icons. These include folder icons, printers, My Documents, My Computer, Recycle Bin, Network Neighborhood, and more. It can also import and install 3rd party icon packages.

Pointers

The mouse pointers can be changed with custom cursor files, or restored to default cursors. Animated cursors can be used, also.

Screen Savers

Screen savers can be changed or imported, and saved with the theme file.

Wizards

Desktop Architect has two wizards, the Theme Package Wizard, and the Theme Install Wizard. The Theme Package Wizard compresses the theme into a ZIP file for distribution. The Theme Install Wizard imports and installs themes downloaded from another source.

Theme Scheduler

This features allows user to have themes automatically set at a specific time of year.

Requirements

Desktop Architect requires version 4.2 or higher of the Windows

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file COMCTL32.DLL, which is located in the computer's System folder. It also requires 64MB of RAM and

16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two ...

1024x768 Video graphics.

References

Windows-only proprietary software