Make Media Center Black

Is the bright blue of Windows Media Center just too much of a shiny, happy color for you? If you’d rather have a darker, more minimalist look for WMC, you should check out the newly updated Black Theme for Media Center, available here on the Hacking Windows 7 Media Center blog. This theme looks great with the colorful channel logos, too.

Here’s how to get this theme installed, (per the blog post):

1. Download this zip file from Hack7MC.com and extract it to C:\Windows\ehome\
2. If you haven’t already installed the “Take Ownership” registry fix, do so now. Then right-click “C:\Windows\ehome\ehres.dll” and select “Take Ownership”.
3. Once you’ve taken ownership of “ehres.dll” (if you have previously installed a Media Center theme ownership should already be set) right-click the patch file and select “Run as Administrator”. Start the patch once the window appears and wait for it to complete.
4. Re-launch Windows 7 Media Center to make sure the new theme has been applied.