Themes
Like Microsoft Windows Vista its also possible to use the Aero theme or at least the Vista Basic theme without transparency and 3d flip.
1. Start the Server Manager by clicking the Server Manager icon in the systray, or the Server Manager shortcut in directly the Start menu or in the menu Administrative Tools.
2. In the Server Manager click below the category Features Summary on Add Features.
3. In the Add Features Wizard window check Desktop Experience, then click Next.
4. Review the installation selection and click Install to start the installation.
5. After the installation has finished, click the Close button and click Yes if you are asked to restart your computer.
6. When you computer has restarted, click Start, Run, then type services.msc and click OK. Next double click on the service named Themes, set Startup type to Automatic and click Apply. Now click Start to start the themes service and close the service manager.
7. right click on an empty spot of your desktop and choose Personalize. In the Personalization window click Theme. Select the Browse… option from the dropdown if theme Windows Vista is not already listed.
8. If theme Windows Vista was not listed, browse to the folder %systemroot%\Resources\Themes, then select aero and click Open. Apply your selection by clicking OK.
9. If you have installed drivers for your videocard you can also enable transparent window borders and 3D Flip (Windowskey + Tab) with Windows Aero Theme in stead of the Windows Vista Basic theme. To do this click Window Color and Appearance in your Personalization window, select Windows Aero and click OK.
Tags Server 2008 Workstation
March 17th, 2008 at 8:37
Is there any way to get DreamScene working on Server08?
April 18th, 2008 at 11:33
Hi!..
When i try to load the aero theme windows says that the theme service is not running, but it is! Can anybody help me?
April 18th, 2008 at 15:42
cannot select aero theme, only vista basic.
video card driver installed!
April 23rd, 2008 at 0:20
Same problem for me
April 26th, 2008 at 7:27
I had the same problem and other functions kept acting up, so I re-installed win2008 enterprise - it solved my problems
May 8th, 2008 at 15:54
It does not quite work; the maximizing / minimizing effects are not there. Surely there’s a registry tweak to enable them.
Admin: It is possible to enable these effects by right clicking on My Computer -> Properties -> on the left Advanced system settings -> Under the Performance title click Settings. In the Visual Effects tab check the options you want! Of course your hardware must be capable of it.
June 10th, 2008 at 0:10
It works flawlessly on my box
Here is how to get custom themes to work with server 2008:
needed files:
http://www.howtogeek.com/downloads/TakeOwnership.zip
http://www.withinwindows.com/uxthemes/Windows%20Server%202008/SP1/6.0.6001.18000_XX.rar
1. open takeownership.zip and run the reg file inside.You will get new “take ownership” option when you right click files.
2. go to C:\windows\system32\
3. take ownership of the following files: shsvcs.dll, themeui.dll and uxtheme.dll
4. move these files somewhere safe and unpack 6.0.6001.18000_XX.rar to your C:\windows\system32 folder
5. reboot your pc and you are ready to go - now you can use custom(unsigned) themes!
#A good place to start looking for themes is http://browse.deviantart.com/customization/skins/vistautil/visstyles/?order=9&alltime=yes
July 6th, 2008 at 7:08
I could have sworn that when I first wet through all the tutorials and updated my vid drivers I had 3d flip working in s2k8 enterprise x64
I had to redo everything and reinstall and now it doesn’t work……
I see at the top of the article that you say 3d flip doesn’t work.
Is my memory failing me or has anyone else seen 3d flip working with s2k8?
thanks
July 6th, 2008 at 7:20
Ok, you CAN use flip 3d
I just had to go to desktop/right click/personalize/window color and appearance/if you don’t see the window for appearance settings then click on the “open classic appearance properties…..”/then select windows aero.
I’m not sure why you would have to go this route as “theme” takes you as far as “windows vista”
oh well … its working now
July 16th, 2008 at 18:41
I think they call it %SystemRoot% these days
Admin: You are right, %windir% is just available to stay backwards-compatible. Updated the article. Thanks for your reply!
July 17th, 2008 at 3:46
I see a lot of the LoveFest for Windows Server 2008, and all the personal ‘belief’ systems that surround it being ‘different’ or better than Vista. (I’ll leave that alone for the moment.)
Does everyone here NOT realize that the Aero Composer and engine ‘alone’ increase application peformance (drawing) by about 20% over Classic and Vista Basic modes?
You are losing a lot of hidden performance by not having the full benefits of Aero, and I am just talking about basic GDI/GDI+ applications, let alone the loss of performance when running .NET 3.x/WPF applications that benefit greatly from the Aero ‘vector’ based Composer.
I guess I am still surprised so many people think they are ’speeding’ up things by turning off Aero, and are happy to run Windows 2008 as a desktop OS without Aero and the performance it brings to the table.
Aero is not just transparency or a composer, but shoves some GDI/GDI+ functions, Font Rendering, Bitmap compression/decompression through the 3D GPU, that you are losing with AERO turned off. (Aero being a composer alone also helps reduce needless application redrawing.)
I challenge everyone that comes here that has an Aero capable Video Card (2003 technology), to test the speed differences for themselves and stop turning Aero off.
If you don’t like ‘transparency’ turn off the translucency, don’t turn off Aero, as this is killing your performance.
Even most games running in a ‘Window’ will run faster with Aero on because of the shared context and RAM virtualization of the WDDM.
I wish I had my links list with me, but here are a couple of older reports about Aero and why people need to stop turning it off!
Also, these are old reports when the WDDM drivers were really crap…
http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/1/2/6453
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/windows_vista_aero_glass_performance/page3.asp
July 21st, 2008 at 9:39
http://www.videotutorialzone.com/operating-systems/windows-server-2008/windows-server-2008-enabling-the-vista-aero-theme-and-programs.html
August 10th, 2008 at 15:26
Hi,
I have a problem with the Aero Glass Design
When I select “Windows Aero” in the Appearance Settings and I click OK,
the “Windows Vista Basic”-Theme become active und the “Windows Aero”-Button is away.
So Windows doesn’t have the glass effect und the 3D Flip.
(sorry if my english not perfect)
Julian
Admin: Check if the most recent drivers of your graphics card are installed. To enable Windows Aero, hardware acceleration must be enabled.
August 11th, 2008 at 13:50
I have the newest driver for my card installed, but I can’t get any information about the hardware acceleration of my card.
(ATI HD3650 - 1024mb PCI-E)
Julian
August 12th, 2008 at 1:00
I have found the reason for my problem,
the ati vista driver don’t work correctly on windows server 2008
and I don’t find any solution on the internet…
(the driver don’t support for e.g. the hardware acceleration)
Julian
August 16th, 2008 at 19:25
Hi Admin,
I did the steps to get the minimize/close/open, etc. effects, and they do not persist through reboots. Are there any known fixes for this? I know it’s not my hardware or something I did, as this happens on the 3 Windows Workstation 2008 boxes I have :\
Thanks,
–Dririan
Admin: Never heard of this problem before. You can try to explicitly enable these effects by running: Start -> Run -> SystemPropertiesPerformance and checking the relevant checkboxes. Good luck!