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Can I put the Windows XP Luna Theme on Windows 7? Will it work? Will it cause damage?

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Not directly, by telling Windows 7 to load the theme files from Windows XP. There may be third party applications to emulate the old theme, however. – iglvzx Dec 30 '11 at 3:02
@iglvzx can you elaborate more? I'm not sure if I fully understand your answer. also would it help if I added more info to my question: i have an XP desktop and a Windows 7 laptop, also, I know where the Luna theme file is on my XP desktop I want to know if I can put it on my Win7 laptop and use it. Would it work and would it cause damage? – Doug K. Dec 30 '11 at 3:17
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DougK: @iglvzx is saying that you can't use the XP theme file directly, but that there might be 3rd party software to emulate or simulate the theme, as in make Windows 7 look very similar. – studiohack♦ Dec 30 '11 at 4:38
oh ok thanks @studiohack♦ – Doug K. Dec 30 '11 at 4:59
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2 Answers

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As far as I know there isn't an official luna theme for Windows 7 from Microsoft.
But, a simple Google search shows that there are many user made themes that try to imitate Windows XP Luna.

You should be able to try them out safely and change back to the default theme easily if you want to.

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i have an XP desktop and a Windows 7 laptop, also, I know where the Luna theme file is on my XP desktop I want to know if I can put it on my Win7 laptop and use it. Would it work and would it cause damage? – Doug K. Dec 30 '11 at 3:13
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No, the Luna theme from XP is not compatible with Windows 7. In fact, other than basic themes which are stored in .THEME text files, no theme from any version of Windows before Vista is compatible with Vista or 7.

Themes that include custom UI forms and textures are stored as resources in DLL files with the extension .MSSTYLES (the color, wallpaper, screensaver, cursors, etc. are referenced—but not stored) in a .THEME file. The PE format has changed from XP to Vista (which is why you cannot run Vista+ EXEs in XP), but that’s only a problem going backward, not the other way around.

What is a problem is that the chrome (ie, the UI) has changed somewhat significantly from XP to Vista and 7, and even though a lot of it is the same and even uses the same identifiers and API constants (for programmers), the fact is, that it has changed enough, that the old themes are just not compatible anymore, and Microsoft chose not to bother trying to force backward-compatibility.

Using an incompatible theme does no damage, it just detects the theme as “corrupt” and uses the Windows default. You can test it for yourself by copying both the Luna directory and Luna.theme file from %windir%\Resources\Themes from XP to the same location in 7. Open the Personalize window and notice that the Luna theme is listed, but the thumbnail is blank. If you click it, it will say Please Wait and look like Windows is applying it, but after a while (much longer than with a compatible theme), it will fail and instead, set to the default theme “Windows 7”.

As yurib said, you’ll have to find a third-party theme specifically designed for Windows 7 that reproduces Luna.

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