ChaNinja Style Icons & DLL's Project

By ChaNinja
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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Rising Star

ChaNinja

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First I wanna thank you all for your great comments, feedback and support! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! You make all the effort worthwhile!

Now I see BeLGaRaTh (and I'm sure some others too) are having difficulties with my Restorator method so I want to elaborate as I'm sure this really is the fastest and easiest way to replace system DLLs.

I made a short movie clip showing how to use this method. Unfortunately there was a power failure in my city today and all the access systems to my varsity labs are down, so I can't upload anything using FTP. I'm at an internet cafe now and I've submitted the file and a description to the HardwareGeeks site. It'll probably be a while before it shows up as it must be moderated first (I hope they allow it).

You'll find it in the "Shell Files" section soon I hope....

LINK

If not then I'll try upload the file tomorrow if the systems are back up.

Don't say I don't care! :D

Later! My precious $$$ are fleeting!

Edited by ChaNinja
Grand Master

+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹

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Cheers ChaNinja ... I did it in a roundabout way by booting to Safe Mode/Command Prompt ... renaming the files in both system32 and dllcache to have a .jfk extension (I will know i made the change then) and then copying your pre-amended files over. Exited out and all was fine, havent had it complain about files being changed, and the animations are working fine :)

Its long winded, but it works ... ill have a look at that short movie though, as it looks like doing it your way will save some time :)

Thanks once again for your awesome work

Rising Star

ChaNinja

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WTH would some pay? 60 $$? to buy the Restorator program ??  when? reshack is free ??  whats the big diffrence ?

The main reason I prefer Restorator Dark Vageta is that it allows you to update your core system DLLs and EXEs without having to reboot in safe mode or use the console thingy or whatever.

It doesn't make that much of a difference if you're editing shellstyle.dlls or .msstyles but for shell32 and the like Restorator is the way forward.

As you'll see in the movie I , Restorator makes the whole process painless and quick, which is very NB when you have to do the process a couple of hundred times.

Also I find the interface and layout in Restorator so much easier to understand and more logical than ResHacker. Whether this is worth $60 is debateable. There are other ways to get :ninja:inja:

Hokay heres the HowTo Movie.

***IMPORTANT***

To watch this movie you need to first install the TSCC Video Codec which I have attached to this post. You can also grab it from HERE

Just follow the basic procedure exactly and it should work fine. Lemme explain whats happening in the movie...

Initially you'll see the MODDED shell32.dll and shdocvw.dll files in the bottom-right pane . These are the files you want to install, i.e. the ones you want to replace your existing DLLs with. I chose those two DLLs as examples but the method will work with any DLL or EXE.

I recommend that you copy the MODDED DLLs to a new folder and browse to that folder in the bottom-right pane of Restorator to keep things tidy (like used my Desktop folder in the movie).

The whole "Extract as..." and "Assign To..." procedures are simply to allow you to use the "Save" function in Restorator as it is disabled until you update the files in some way.

So basically all you're doing is enabling the Save option and then overwriting your existing DLLs. A quick reboot and you're all done.

Restorator automatically makes backups everytime you overwrite a file.

I hope you give this method a shot, you'll see why I use it.

TSCC.zip

Grand Master

+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹

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Thanks Chaninja, I can follow exactly what you mean now, which wil save a lot of time in any future releases/amendments you make.

Cheers once again (Y)

Community Regular

el22

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Cha, this is the BEST and most elaborated icon set I've EVER seen.

I'm not personally a fan of the VS but the icons and avis are simply the best!

REALLY REALLY great.

BTW I'll be curious, could you give us the list of programs you used to make them? (that's not simple photoshop evidently :p)

Grand Master

User_Deleted

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The main reason I prefer Restorator Dark Vageta is that it allows you to update your core system DLLs and EXEs without having to reboot in safe mode or use the console thingy or whatever.

It doesn't make that much of a difference if you're editing shellstyle.dlls or .msstyles but for shell32 and the like Restorator is the way forward.

As you'll see in the movie I , Restorator makes the whole process painless and quick, which is very NB when you have to do the process a couple of hundred times.

Also I find the interface and layout in Restorator so much easier to understand and more logical than ResHacker. Whether this is worth $60 is debateable. There are other ways to get it. :ninja:

Hokay heres the HowTo Movie.

***IMPORTANT***

To watch this movie you need to first install the TSCC Video Codec which I have attached to this post. You can also grab it from HERE

Just follow the basic procedure exactly and it should work fine. Lemme explain whats happening in the movie...

Initially you'll see the MODDED shell32.dll and shdocvw.dll files in the bottom-right pane . These are the files you want to install, i.e. the ones you want to replace your existing DLLs with. I chose those two DLLs as examples but the method will work with any DLL or EXE.

I recommend that you copy the MODDED DLLs to a new folder and browse to that folder in the bottom-right pane of Restorator to keep things tidy (like used my Desktop folder in the movie).

The whole "Extract as..." and "Assign To..." procedures are simply to allow you to use the "Save" function in Restorator as it is disabled until you update the files in some way.

So basically all you're doing is enabling the Save option and then overwriting your existing DLLs. A quick reboot and you're all done.

Restorator automatically makes backups everytime you overwrite a file.

I hope you give this method a shot, you'll see why I use it.

thx for the info I had no idea :D :blink:

Rising Star

ChaNinja

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Are you going to later include this icon and animation pack in a full release candidate? like "ChaNinja Visual Style RC6"?

Yes, but only after the other DLLs are done...TurnOff/LogOff, Please wait screens, throbber and toolbars.

Something that worries me however is the rapidly increasing SIZE of this theme. Its actually getting quite unmanageable for me. I think the only feasible solution is to distribute each color separately i.e. as a standalone theme. Even like that it'll be a fat download...I'm estimating that each complete color scheme (including the VS, cursors, wallpaper, userpic, icons, DLL mods, logins and boot screen) could easily be about 10MB! That could well be over 100MB for the full complete ChaNinja Style! Imagine downloading that on a 56K! :pinch:

So yeah, thats how it'll be from now on...each color on its own.

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