Hidden Aero Lite Theme in Windows 8 RTM enabling

[Jason Voorhees]

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I am excited about the release of Windows 8 and I am willing to use it on my computer. The problem is that, my computer is not a high end PC and has decent graphic card and other such peripherals. It has a graphic card which can provide memory of 256 MB and 1 GB of RAM. I know this is not adequate for running Windows 8 on my computer. But I have heard that there is also hidden Aero Lite theme in it which will help me to optimize the interface properly for low end PCs. Can someone tell me more about it?

[Lord]

The Aero Lite theme in Windows 8 is meant for PCs with hardware that is not enough to support the full features of Windows 8 interface. This theme has a light interface which will not have all the fancy features like transparency on the panels of the Windows, the shine or the blur effect. It will be a simple theme with opaque Windows Panels and no fancy effects. This theme will not be accessible and usable for the users directly. If the hardware in the computer is enough according to the specifications of Windows 8, then the default theme will be set automatically. But if the hardware is not enough, then Aero Lite theme will be set automatically.

[killerboy]

The Aero Lite theme is useful in many ways. For as to say if you are using the Windows 8 in your laptop, then the default theme with all the fancy effects will consume large amount of battery and also other resources. This will be harmful if seen from business point of view. To preserve the battery of the laptop, Aero Lite theme will be useful. Also many people who have used the Windows Vista and Windows 7 found it irritating to use the interface with transparent panels and task bars. But there was no option to completely remove the transparency. I think that Aero Lite theme will help to preserve the opacity in Windows 8.

[Sujit15]

Let me explain you the working of the themes in Windows 8. There are .theme files present in the Windows 8 that are responsible for the changing of the theme in Windows 8. This .theme file directs the user to the .msstyles file which has all the components for the new theme. This .msstyles file for Aero Lite theme is present in Windows 8 from before, but it cannot be directly used or accessed by the user from the control panel or theme changer. If .theme file for this theme is found then we can unlock this theme to be applied manually on our computer.

[XSI]

The .msstyles files for Aero Lite theme is present at the following location C:\Windows\Resources. Here you will see that there are three files like aero.theme, theme1.theme and theme2.theme. Along with these files will be a folder by name aero which has the .msstyles file for Aero Lite theme. All we need to do is to add a .theme for aero lite. All you need to do is make a copy of aero.theme file and modify it as per the need. Now open the copy of the aero.theme in notepad and you will see some script in it. You have to modify two lines in it such that it will look like this:

You have to add DisplayName=AeroLite and change the path to name of this file. Once done, you will need to save this file and copy it again in the main themes folder, which is C:\Windows\Resources. You will now find this theme in Desktop Personalization window.