Формат файлов MSSTYLES в Windows XP и Vista: структура и редактирование.

Microsoft file format

MSSTYLES is a Microsoft file format, that contains the bitmaps and metadata for the Windows XP skinning engine, first introduced in Windows Whistler Build 2250. The engine, in its unmodified state, only fully applies msstyles files that have been digitally signed by Microsoft, such as Luna or the Zune theme. The default Windows XP style is known as Luna, but additional custom made styles are available on the Internethowever, few are digitally signed. Four other signed styles for Windows XP include Royale (Media Center Edition) (Energy Blue), Royale Noir, Windows Embedded Standard CTP Refresh, and the Zune Style. Unsigned styles can be used via various methods, by means of manually patching or replacing system files or automatically by one of the programs made for this purpose. These programs are usually called "UxTheme patchers" from the name of the XP library that required patching, UxTheme. dll, despite that recent Windows versions require patches to different files. Many popular and freely distributed patchers can be found online, often using different ways to enable custom themes. Windows Vista and later also use msstyles files for skinning (like the Aero. msstyles file), however the format of these files is significantly different, so msstyles files are not transferable between Windows Vista and Windows XP. This version of msstyles file contains PNG images and metadata. There is a manual way to replace three DLL files (uxtheme. dll, shsvcs. dll and themeui. dll) to use unsigned custom visual styles in Windows Vista.

Offsets in the following table are relative to end of file. Offset hex Offset dec Size Purpose −N N 128 bytes Cryptographic signature with "Microsoft Visual Style Signature" key −10 −16 4 bytes Magic number, must be 0x84692426 −0C −12 4 bytes N − 16, the negative distance of signature from magic. −08 −8 8 bytes Total file size

In Windows Vista and later, msstyles files are still 32 bit PE files with no code, however the format of the actual theme part is entirely different. Bitmaps are no longer used in favor of PNG images. The properties themselves are also no longer stored in text resources, and as such, unlike the previous format, msstyles files made for Windows Vista and later cannot be edited to the fullest extent with a regular PE resource editor. Two programs that can edit these files are msstyleEditor and Vista Style Builder. The former is free and open source, whereas the latter is paid, however with more features than msstyleEditor.