[2005]XP Visual Styles On Win2K PC!

[maps]

We are told that Enableling Visual styles is an xp thing. So the XP visual styles only work on WinXP and not any earlier OS. My App is developed on a WinXP Machine with Visual Styles enabled in my VS IDE.
It also uses some custom dlls which i have XP visual styles! And unlike the common Windows Controls, they show perfectly well on my Win2K OS PC. How can i achive this?
I know it can be achieved.

[mpdeglau]

If these dlls are custom controls that someone has created, then they have drawn them to look like XP controls. If you want all your controls to look like XP controls, no matter what OS you would have to draw them yourself.

[maps]

I deployed my application on an xp machine of my BOSS. Little did i know that the guy had changed his theme to classic themes.
When my application launched, my controls were displayed as old OS controls without XP theme styles. I had to go and download Skybound visualstyles, tested and it was still the same thing....i had started *****ing my hair then i realised the classic thems.

I wonder is there any free control or dll out there that favours XP visual styles on both XP machines and older OS!!!

[jmcilhinney]

The fact that you're calling them "XP visual styles" should give you a clue. Visual styles is an XP feature that flat-out doesn't exist on other earlier versions of Windows. Will you be surprised when XP doesn't support the fancy graphics of Vista? If you want your controls to look a certain way not matter the OS then you must draw them yourself on every OS and not rely on visual styles at all, which has already been stated by mpdeglau.

[maps]

But changing the theme of Windows XP to classic theme is which feature!!
Just hardware feature!!

[penagate]

Don't force the user. I like the Classic theme, if an application imposes XP styles on me I won't use it.

[maps]

hehe....i too love it. but it may look confusing to those who dont like older OS.

[penagate]

Yes, you are confusing.

[maps]

Gheeeeeeeeeee!!

[RobDog888]

First of all, eveeryone is telling you correct info. You can not have XP themes on anything other then Windows XP. If you want you can manually draw them to look similar using GDI+ but its allot of work. Themes in XP are not necessarily a function or control but a drawing process that occurs before a window is rendered. This is just like manually drawing the graphics yourself. so if you want similar "themes" in 2000 then I suggest you read up on GDI+.