Hi guys, great work with tweaking the "restricted" themes RDP > WS2K8. I am sitting on a 32-bit server 2008 SP1 enterprise and i have tried your fix Arris but in the hex workshop i can not find the hex data you have entered for me to change (0x00006B7A , 0x00007324). I have tried searching in hex and dec and with the different languages etc. nit with no luck...
Regarding the different versions OS, this file should be the same? Can you possibly link the "Tstheme.exe" file for download? Can that work? If not can i just replace original "Tstheme.exe" and back to the way it was?
Is there anything else i can do?
I really hope we can find a fix for this soon!!!!

Thanks again for great tweaking etc.
Regards. Henrik

Found a more specific location to patch the dll so you don't need to replace multiple values nor you have to delete a registry key. Couldn't get Aero working over Remote Desktop yet, maybe someone else can help? Anyway, here are the steps for Windows Server 2008 SP1/SP2 x86/x64. I only tested the SP1 x64 so please confirm the others are working too!

1. Go to %windir%\System32 and make a backup of tstheme.exe (e.g. tstheme.exe.bak).
2. Copy tstheme.exe to an other directory (e.g. your Desktop) and open it in an Hex Editor like Hex Workshop.
3. Depending on your Server 2008 version replace the following hex values:

Version: SP1 x86 - Verified
MD5: d9383476ca1b8c9fda2909815f4c45ad
Find: 75 36 FF B5 5C
Replace with: E9 33 00 00 00

Version: SP1 x64 - Verified
MD5: 73ee3acb4284f47fee55f2dfa634c3fb
Find: 75 33 8B 44 24
Replace with: E9 30 00 00 00

Version: SP2 x86 - Verified
MD5: 1904dba08c2d63ce2025cad78f5df2bb
Find: 75 36 FF B5 5C
Replace with: E9 33 00 00 00

Version: SP2 x64 - Verified
MD5: 73ee3acb4284f47fee55f2dfa634c3fb
Find: 75 33 8B 44 24
Replace with: E9 30 00 00 00

4. Save the file and copy it back to %windir%\System32 overwriting the existing one. (Check this page if you can't overwrite it)
5. Log in using Remote Desktop and enjoy the Vista Basic theme!

Good luck!

Version: SP1 x86
OK and working.
Great work
Thanks , Henrik

Server 2008 x64 SP2

Works like charm !

Thx.

Thanks hpl.hp and lars for your feedback! I updated the post.

Arris, I just checked it in a VM I still had running x86 SP2, your patch works there as well. It was the least I could do in return. Thanks again.

Good work lars! Updated the list again. Hope in the future we 'll also get Aero working. I looked into it some time ago, ran Sysinternals Process Monitor on both Vista x86 SP1 and Server 2008 x86 SP1 and compared the differences, but couldn't find any registry setting yet on which Server 2008 decides to not use Aero... Also dissasembling several RDP-related executables/dll's didn't brought me any further. However, we 'll get it sometime!

A side effect of the patch solution is that themes/Aero basic is enabled for all sessions even if theme support is unchecked in the RDP client.

Thanks for notifying about this issue! I added it as a remark in the main topic.

Thanks everyone for the pointers. I wanted the same results but was not happy with patching system files etc.

So I thought that if the creation of the Remote subkey in the registry is the reason why Vista theme cannot be selected, then just Deny the user the permission to create the subkey. I tried the theory and it worked!!!!!

Steps are:
1. Login as the user for which you want to enable the Vista theme (this can by direct login or RDP login)
2. Open registry and goto key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ThemeManager
2b. If you logged in via RDP then Delete the Remote subkey at this point
3. Right click the ThemeManager key and select Permissions... from the context menu
4. Select the user and click the Advanced button to edit permissions
5. Select the user and click the Edit button to change the permissions
6. Select the Create subkeys Deny checkbox. Leave others checkboxes empty. On pressing OK you'd get a warning but click Yes.
7. Change to Vista Theme (if you hadn't already). Logoff and RDP back in.
8. That's all.

Enjoy.

And thanks again for giving me the idea.