Ugly Outlook in Energy Blue fix

I knew putting a shout out to the user community to come up with a fix for the ugly Outlook interface under the Energy Blue theme for the Tablet PC would yield results and jkOnTheRun reader and The Tablet PC Show listener Kunal Kundaje has come through for us all.  The fix is stunningly simple as I knew it just had to be.  Here's the fix from Kunal's web site:

There's a really simple solution, actually. Here's what you have to do - first, switch back to the default Windows XP style, and close down Outlook if it's running. Then, open up Windows Explorer and head over to C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes\Royale. This is where the Energy Blue theme is installed. Under the folder, you'll notice the actual visual style file, which is also named Royale. All you have to do is rename this file to "luna" which is the filename of the default Windows XP style. Double-click this file and hit the Apply button in the Windows display properties dialog box that appears to switch back to the Energy Blue theme.

That's all there is to it. Outlook is "fooled" into thinking you're using Luna, and you can go back to enjoying it in all its colorful glory. :)

This works very well and there is a screen shot for comparison below.  One caveat- the fix did not work out of the box for me until I totally uninstalled WindowBlinds.  Thanks Kunal, you are my hero!

Comments

[Kunal Kundaje]

Not a problem, James. Glad to help. :)

[Fiver Stone]

Thanks! When you first posed the question I didn't think I had the same complaint (mostly since I don't use a TabletPC), but after seeing the answer, I looked more closely at my setup and remembered that I had downloaded the Royale theme but thought the same thing about how Outlook appeared washed-out in it. So I applied this fix from Kunal and it works great! It's the best of both themes in my opinion.

[JonGH]

Fantastic,

I'd just about given up on this. Installing WindowsBlinds caused me all sorts of trouble - not the fault of the program I might add. Its good to see that there are people like Kunal out there.

Thanks again

[arebelspy]

Fix worked great here too. Thanks! :D

-arebelspy

[Jason]

I was so happy to see this tip, but unfortunately I must have something gunked up too much; it doesn't want to work for me. I tried uninstalling WindowBlinds, but to no avail. When I double-click the renamed "luna" msstyle file, it actually defaults to the Default (blue) style. I think when I manually switch it to "Royale" that's when Outlook is tipped off. Oh well!

[jk]

Ooh, WindowBlinds is probably creaming you, I uninstalled it months ago due to instabilities I started seeing when using it.