Skin Microsoft Office 2007

Those annoying blue borders...

Monday, April 14, 2008 by Electo | Discussion: WindowBlinds

Looking back through older skins in the WindowBlinds gallery, I was looking at the Aero Executive preview picture and I noticed at the bottom that the borders in Microsoft Word 2007 were skinned. I posted a comment on the skin about this a while ago, but I didn't think anybody would notice it since it's a relatively old skin.

Anyway, I was just wondering how the authors of Aero Executive went about getting Office 2007 to skin in the preview. Or is it supposed to be skinned by default, and there is just something wrong with my computer?

And if the latter is true, then that might be related to another problem I've had. Even though Stardock claimed that "non theme-aware programs" would be skinned by WindowBlinds, all my non-theme aware programs don't get skinned. Command Prompt and an old Webster's dictionary program (very old, I don't know for what Windows OS, but it was copyrighted in 1992) are examples of these programs.

My system information:

WindowBlinds version : WindowBlinds 6.02 (build 44 x86)

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC
WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC
Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

(HP f1905 flat panel monitor) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce 6800

Wblind.dll 2008/01/16 13:42:20
Wbsrv.dll 2008/01/14 18:02:10
Wbconfig.exe 2008/01/14 18:02:35
Wbload.exe 2007/09/27 17:47:44
Wbhelp.dll 2007/08/27 12:54:07
Wbui.dll 2007/11/06 11:13:05
Tray.dll 2007/09/12 18:58:21
Screen.exe 2008/01/14 18:02:18

I have Windows XP Professional, SP2.

It would be great if anyone could help with either of these problems.

Thanks,
Electo
Electo
Reply #1 Monday, April 14, 2008 5:35 PM
I'm sorry, I didn't notice that somebody else already posted something about the same topic ("Office 2007" by coult69). However, it would be nice if somebody had any advice about the non-theme aware programs problem. They still have the old "Windows Classic Style" look.
Omegatec
Reply #2 Sunday, December 7, 2008 6:58 AM

Electo,

I am just going through the forums looking for some advice, because I have the same problem as you.  None of the MS Office 2007 applications get skinned (MS-Word, MS-Excel, MS-Access, MS-Outlook, etc.). And I am running Vista Business edition.

BTW, attempting to search the forums using the strings 'Office 2007' produces no results for me.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

 

NightTrainthedark
Reply #3 Sunday, December 7, 2008 7:40 AM

However, it would be nice if somebody had any advice about the non-theme aware programs problem. They still have the old "Windows Classic Style" look.

Windowblinds is layered on top of the windows classic interface. When you apply WB , if the program is unskinnable then you will have the clasic interface as that is really the theme being applied.

Neil Banfield
Reply #4 Sunday, December 7, 2008 5:09 PM

On XP the main window in Office 2007 apps will not have skinned borders.  This is because they are self skinned.

On Vista they will be skinned IF the machine supports the DWM otherwise they will not be.

The older app mentioned sounds like it may be 16 bit in which case we do not skin it either (for compatibility reasons)

Command prompts are special windows and do not skin on XP or Vista with WB.  This may change with Windows 7 though.

Omegatec
Reply #5 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 7:34 AM

Neil,

Thanks for the tip. I applied the Windows AERO color scheme and now my MS-Office 2007 applications are skinned in Vista.

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