Like Microsoft Windows 7 its also possible to use the Aero theme including 3d flip or at least the Windows 7 Basic theme without transparency nor 3d flip. Note that following this tutorial and installing the “Desktop Experience” Feature also installs Windows Mail, Windows Media Player, Video for Windows (AVI support), Windows Photo Gallery, Windows SideShow, Windows Defender, Disk Cleanup, Sync Center, Sound Recorder and Character Map.
1. Start the Server Manager and click below the category Features Summary at Add Features.
2. In the Add Features Wizard window check Desktop Experience and also accept to install the Ink and Handwriting Services when asked. Then click Next.
3. Review the Installation Selections and click Install to start the installation of the selected Features.
4. After the installation has finished, click the Close button and click Yes when asked if you want to restart your computer.
5. After the computer has restarted, review and close the Installation Results window and go to Administrative Tools in the Start menu and click Services.
6. Double click on the service named Themes, set Startup type to Automatic and click Apply. After the Startup type is set to Automatic click Start to start the Themes service whereafter you can close the Services Manager.
7. Download themes.zip (38,5MB) via Mirrorcreator, extract it and run install(.cmd) to install the Windows 7 Default Themes. This step is optional as you can also download the themes you want from Microsoft – Windows 7 – Personalize your PC
8. Right click at an empty spot of your desktop and choose Personalize. In the Personalization window click a theme or get a nice theme via the Get more themes online link. If you have installed drivers for your videocard you will now have transparent windows and you are able to use 3D Flip (Windowskey + Tab)!
Continue to install the Windows 7 Sidebar…
45 comments so far...
Can’t activate Desktop Experience. Failed to activate the service (an error after reset). Can’t reinstall it. Please help !
Solved it by myself! Had to install Nvidia Geforce driver for Windows Vista x64.
There’s no Windows Calendar for R2
Arris: Thanks for your comment! I just copied all features from the Non-R2 Windows Server 2008 page, so updated the post now with the correct information.
Windows Calendar from Server 2008 works on R2 under WOW64. I don’t know if the reminder thing will work though.
I tried to install (following all these step with no exceptions) but when I try to set a theme, I got this message:
“Your system administrator has disabled lauching of the Display Control Panel.”
No matter how far I look for a solution, didn’t find nothing helpful.
Thanks. And congratulations for the nice work here.
You need to install windows live essentals with windows update to get the calender windows 7 does not include a bunch of the built-in apps that vista did.
If you move a window or maximize/m inimize a window after you modded Server 2008 R2 like this it still does not have ALL of the Win7-effects. Moving a windows does not result in a live-moving but Win2008 will show a Box of the size of the window, which you will move around and will just show the real window after you dropped that “box”…
anyone knows how to change this? also turn on the maximize/minimize-effects?
would be awesome
THX
Solution: go to “system properties” and switch to “best apperance” visual appearance. then all the effects are active!
I can’t do it, the button is not clickable for enabling javascript, what do I do?
Arris: Which button is not clickable? You mean the Get more themes online link in the last screenshot?
I’m having trouble getting my Win2k8 R2 to install Desktop Experience. Even after rebooting, the installation will not complete. After the 3rd reboot, it gives me a message saying there was an error and since it failed 3 times, it will not try again.
Any ideas?
Arris: Take a look at the Event Log which can be accessed via Start -> Run -> eventvwr.msc. See if you can find any Error or Warning messages in the System and Application eventlogs that make sense.
[...] have all the cool features like Windows flip, Windows flip 3d, Aero themes just like Windows 7. Here, you will find few easy easy steps that’ll help you with the transformation. [...]
After install of “Desktop Experience” the processor went to 80-90% use- task man says svc.host- stop process, again it took off- stop process-(I thought i got infected here but it turned out to be Win Defender update according to Event Viewer)
Very nice Site you have here. Just what I was looking for.
On to the next step…
Arris: I’m glad you like the site!
About the cpu usage: you can try to use Sysinternals Process Explorer to find out what’s exhausting the CPU.
how to install Desktop Environment Feature on Server 2008 R2 HPC Edition ??
[...] can, I used Win2008R2 as my desktop OS for a while. Follow this guide to do so. It has a lot of other Win2008R2 tweaks on that site as well __________________ [...]
My server says error ! refreshing !
don’t know haven’t yet activated the product ! maybe that’s why !
This is one of the most useful posts I’ve seen on the Internet in a long time. Very well done. May I suggest you add one more step… How do we get rid of the default group policies that are on Server 2008 and make it like Win 7?
Arris: I’m glad you like it! The modification of the Group Policies is described in the other articles which can be accessed via the main page of the manual.
Thanks for ur valuable Information. good work. again thanking u..
Hi and thanksa lot for the step by step tutorials
But I have a computer with win server 2008 r2 and GTX480 and the latest drivers installed but still I could not enable aero and it shows me the basic theme.
I would be glad if anyone can help
a million thanks in advance
Nima Nouri
Hi guys, playing around with Server 2008 R2 at the moment.
To be able to select the Aero theme I had to also do the following step (as noted by Kralle above) after starting the Themes service
Right click “My Computer”
Select Properties
Click on “Advanced system settings”
In the “Advanced” tab, click the “Settings” button for Performance
In the “Visual Effects” tab, choose “Adjust for best appearance”
Click “Apply”
I haven’t tried, but you will likely be able to de-select some of the features (not sure which specific ones were required to let me select the theme)
Had the following problem:
successfully enabled Aero effects, but after every reboot many even basic options (like showing window content while dragging etc) reset to default values (minimal appearance).
Has anyone experienced the same issue?
Arris: Try to set these appearance properties manually via Start -> Run -> SystemPropertiesPerformance -> OK. Hope that works!
It worked, thank you very much!
Arris: I’m glad to hear it works, thanks for your feedback!
[...] is a link to an article by Win2008r2workstation.com that describes this process very [...]
Thanks you for your guidance.
from where can i download video card drive for transparent windows?
Arris: Glad I could help
You can find drivers for your videocard by following the steps on this page.
Thks Lot !
[...] http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/win2008r2/themes [...]
[...] Themes [...]
Hi guys, thankyou for share this with us.
A little help for Spanish people, you have to change this line in install.cmd:
icacls “%SystemRoot%\Web\Wallpaper\Windows\img0.jpg” /grant administrators:F>nul
to this one:
icacls “%SystemRoot%\Web\Wallpaper\Windows\img0.jpg” /grant administrdores:F>nul
Hapy new year and Feliz Navidad
I extracted the file to a folder named themes on c:\. When I run install.cmd i get the following error
ERROR: The system cannot find the path specified.
I opened the .cmd file and read it, then looked and the path in the does exist.
How to activate video card driver?
I added the desktop experience feature, then rebooted. When it came back up I enabled the themes services, then rebooted again. I set the appearance settings to best appearance. But still when I open the personalization window there are no options for changing themes and all of the icons at the bottom “Desktop Background, Window Color, etc” all say “Loading”. Any ideas?
I have the same issue as Jason. Any ideas how to fix this?
Ah. The reason was that the uxtheme.dll patcher failed and the .dlls it changed to were corrupted somehow.
There should be .backup files there.
In safe mode, rename the uxtheme.dll, and others that have .backup extension copies in Windows\System32, to something else, and change the .backup ones to use.
can anyone post the uitheme.dll for windows server 2008 r2 sp1?
i restored the uxtheme.dll.backup to uxtheme.dll. apparently it still have the problem of ‘loading’ of everything..
ooh sorry. after i restore 3 files that is patched by uxtheme. its alright now. great thanks!
Arris: I’m glad you fixed it
Thanks for reporting back!
When I attempt to run the theme or the sidebar script I receive the error message bellow. My user account is a member of the Administrators group. If I right click on the script and select run as administrator then the CMD window will open and close a split second after but I receive no error even though the script didn’t actually run. Thanks for your help.
ERROR: The current logged on user does not have ownership privileges on the file (or folder).
Access is denied.
i have the same problem as ryan, does anyone know a solution to this?
First, thank you so much for taking the time to write and post this. It is a great help.
When I go to personalize my desktop and I select a theme, my screen background turns to black. I can successfully change back to the boring default 2008 theme.
I tried another reboot to no avail.
Arris: Having a black background could occur when Windows detects you are running an unlicensed or pirated version. Make sure you don’t use any cracks and activation hacks. If that’s not the case, please ask your question at the forum.
[...] Enable the Desktop Experience feature [...]
Step 8 does not work for me. Step 1 to 7 went through exactly as your snapshots. Basically in the Themes Control Panel App it keeps the Aero Themes disabled and does not allow me to change to that theme. Also tried downloading one of the themes from Microsoft but same thing, it gets installed but is disabled. Any idea whats missing? Maybe video card settings or something.
I have same problem with Anup. Why?
Arris: You probably have to force Windows to use Aero. You can use the following article to do that: MDL: Force Enable Windows Aero Glass.
Getting Aero transparency to work in Windows Server 2008 R2 in VMWare.
By default, 3d acceleration is disabled in VMWare. For some reason this doesn’t adversely affect Windows 2008 Server or Windows 7; just Windows Server 2008 R2. The fix is to force VMWare to enable 3d acceleration. TO do so, add the following lines to the VMX file for the virtual machine…
mks.enable3d = TRUE
svga.vramSize = 67108864
I put them at the very bottom. It doesn’t matter, because VMWare will rearrange the file to its liking.
Save the file and restart your VM. When it comes up, you should have Aero Glass transparency.
Enjoy!
I downloaded the file and extracted it to my Desktop and attempt to run the install(.cmd). It opens up and says press a key to begin installation. I do and then it starts but the dialog box closes almost instantly and nothing gets installed. Not sure what to do, because I can’t read what comes up in the install box because it disappears so quickly.
Arris: Open the ‘Command Prompt’ application via the Start menu. Then drag the install.cmd file to that (black) window and press enter. Now you will probably be able to see the error message. In case the error is about permissions, make sure you run the installer as Administrator (right click -> Run as Administrator). Good luck!
can not choose any theme as i can not setup the video card driver for toshiba satellite l655
Arris: You can ask for help at the forum for finding the driver for your graphics card. Hope that will work out!
The Themes.zip can’t be downloaded withing installing iLivid’s download manager and that is wrong to require that. Why can’t it just be a normal download link?
It also states this is optional, and that doesn’t seem to be true, I can’t get the ZIP file to do this step so I tried to install another theme from the Windows 7 themes site and they won’t install stating the theme can’t be applied to the desktop, try clicking a different theme.
SO that install.cmd may be doing more that just putting the default theme implace.
You are the great
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