Change wallpaper for custom windows theme and save it?

[Mark Kaine]

I got the madobe theme from deviantart and when i change the wallpaper and then "save theme" in personalization it saves it but it doesn't save the wallpaper and doesn't show up properly in the theme settings either,  as in it just doesn't show the wallpaper there either.

 

So i think i should just copy the theme, rename it and then replace the wallpaper (it has its own folder, i suppose that's why its not saving in the normal way to begin with after i change something) 

 

that shouldn't break anything,  right? 

But i think i would probably need to repack it somehow to work anyway, since it probably won't "install" that way? 

 

ps: basically i just want the sounds from the theme but change the wallpaper and accent colors, it works, but i cant save it.

 

this is how the original theme looks in app data

 

 

 

 

[Bombastinator]

36 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

I got the madobe theme from deviantart and when i change the wallpaper and then "save theme" in personalization it saves it but it doesn't save the wallpaper and doesn't show up properly in the theme settings either,  as in it just doesn't show the wallpaper there either.

 

So i think i should just copy the theme, rename it and then replace the wallpaper (it has its own folder, i suppose that's why its not saving in the normal way to begin with after i change something) 

 

that shouldn't break anything,  right? 

But i think i would probably need to repack it somehow to work anyway, since it probably won't "install" that way? 

 

ps: basically i just want the sounds from the theme but change the wallpaper and accent colors, it works, but i cant save it.

 

this is how the original theme looks in app data

 

 

 

 

There might be a setting in personalization to mess with in windows.  

[Mark Kaine]

41 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

There might be a setting in personalization to mess with in windows.  

there is but it doesn't save this properly... like i can save & apply it but it'll just be the original madobe theme background again then.

 

basically i would need to change the sounds of a normal theme,  set a background and color and save that... *maybe* that would work but not sure and its a hassle.

 

ps: eh, im not sure, i just changed some sounds and the background... saved it and it looks like it works but its possible when i change to another theme it breaks (which i dont want to try right now lol )

Edited February 3, 2023 by Mark Kaine

[Bombastinator]

4 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

there is but it doesn't save this properly... like i can save & apply it but it'll just be the original madobe theme background again then.

 

basically i would need to change the sounds of a normal theme,  set a background and color and save that... *maybe* that would work but not sure and its a hassle.

 

ps: eh, im not sure, i just changed some sounds and the background... saved it and it looks like it works but its possible when i change to another theme it breaks (which i dont want to try right now lol )

This leads me to suspect maybe your windows install is messed up in some way then.  Crystaldiskinfo to see if the drive is messed up, windows refresh to maybe blindly fix whatever is up with the install.  The refresh is one button and doesn’t take long.  It just rewrites a bunch of windows internal file.  Worst case it does nothing.

[Mark Kaine]

22 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

This leads me to suspect maybe your windows install is messed up in some way then.  Crystaldiskinfo to see if the drive is messed up, windows refresh to maybe blindly fix whatever is up with the install.  The refresh is one button and doesn’t take long.  It just rewrites a bunch of windows internal file.  Worst case it does nothing.

Yeah, i have backups... but in my experience something like this is fixable,  i haven't reinstalled Windows 10 since i installed it in 2018 and i don't really plan on doing that, but it certainly seems like a weird "bug". Of course its difficult to figure out what's wrong without knowing how that theme was made, or how themes actually work on Windows 10 - the weird part is this is supposed to be a native win 10 theme... maybe it's just buggy in itself?

Maybe Win 10 has a limitation how many themes you can save, although that seems doubtful and i only have like 5. The other weird thing is the one i saved before installing this theme is still there,  working. So maybe this "custom" theme really messed something up.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 4, 2023 by Mark Kaine
auto correct

[Bombastinator]

21 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Yeah, i have backups... but in my experience something like this is fixable,  i haven't reinstalled Windows 10 since i installed it in 2018 and i don't really plan on doing that, but it certainly seems like a weird "bug". Of course its difficult to figure out what's wrong without knowing how that theme was made, or how themes actually work on Windows 10 - the weird part is this is supposed to be a native win 10 theme... maybe it's just buggy in itself?

Maybe Win 10 has a limitation how many themes you can save, although that seems doubtful and i only have like 5. The other weird thing is the one i saved before installing this theme is still there,  working. So maybe this "custom" theme really messed something up.

 

 

 

 

I don’t know a lot about themes I’m afraid.  Dunno why the refresh thing was bolded.  People use different terms for things.  One common one is reset when they mean clean install.  What I am talking about is something called system refresh whic only rewrites internal Microsoft stuff and doesn’t touch your data or even I think your settings.  Clean install will of course do that too (along with a heck of a lot of other things.  It includes a drive reformat) but it is a heck of a lot more than one button. If system refresh is mousetraps, Clean install is “take off and nuke the site from orbit it’s the only way to be sure” (one of Ripley’s lines from ‘Aliens’ a kickass movie btw) sometimes it is what has to be done though.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Bombastinator

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Dunno why the refresh thing was bolded.

because I wanted to directly refer to that. you're right its an option (that likely wouldn't fix anything though since whatever was messed up by this theme would happen again when i reinstall it, like 99% probability) 

 

The other thing is i do not plan to reinstall windows fresh and the refresh button you mentioned might work, but it has issues and therefore using a backup would be the better option imo.

 

Its not hassle free because I'd still need to backup data that's not been backed up yet separately,  but well, that takes maybe 30 minutes tops - and i may have to do that anyways because i messed up something else , or rather Shutup10 did (somehow i cant get back my previous Cortana settings which were *perfect* - something to do with history, but history settings,  so far, didn't fix it)

 

Generally while "refreshes" or reinstalls maybe are valid options for people,  it's really just a copout ... it's in 99% not necessary  - and while i used my backups more than I'd like it was always avoidable, I knew what i was doing would be risky (tbh, it was always windows updates iirc lol) and this time, well, i didn't expect the new shutup10 to be so awful,  i knew however that installing a custom theme would come with some risks- now I'm just basically trying to figure out the culprit(s) before using a backup,  because i would certainly want to avoid that and also rather want to learn how these things really work and possibly how to fix them, you aren't learning anything by just resetting,  even though that may be the last resort.

 

 

Watch this, while it's a different premise,  the underlying statement is still the same - you do not need to reinstall windows - unless something truly broke, and you really shouldn't because basic maintaining/ fixing stuff is simply better! 

 

 

For example a reinstalled or failed "refresh" would cost me so much time its not even funny cause i have some pretty uncommon settings and stuff which would take probably weeks to reestablish,  and completely unnecessarily too, because i could just use one of my backups instead  = )

 

 

EDIT: oh I actually have an *update* too, because meanwhile i can safely say this theme has issues,  ie sometimes Madobe's (or "Touko's") voice lines (i mean system sounds) simply don't work, or  rather randomly stop working.  Pretty odd!

 

Edit2: and this only seems to happen when i actually change something,  because i tested it after installing and it worked fine, any issues only seem to appear once i change something,  like saving an altered version (or changing system sounds)... it just bugs out randomly, as per inquiry of this topic.

 

 

i now have voice lines / system sounds from Windows 7 (ultimate? ), Windows 8 and Windows 10 however,  which is pretty awesome!