Sorry for not replying, but was enjoying the (bank) holiday weekend...
Anyhow, about your questions, I can't really tell you any exact answers,
because I just don't know!
I'm going more off intuition here, than anything else...
My thinking was that maybe some application extensions (.dll files) were
perhaps damaged, and this installation might repair both any damaged files
and any obscure settings in the registry that may have "got in the way" of
loading the XP-style themes.
Also, I had not realised that the "damage" was so widespread in the
system - that is; being present, not only in every profile, but also in
newly-created profiles - which *is* a very bad sign....
Still, one can only experiment, and, since this particular installation is
made by Microsoft, it's totally safe to try....
==
Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)
P.S. the download link once again :
http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...sktopTheme.msi
"dougjk" wrote in message
...
also i'm definatly going to try that, so thankyou so much
clipped