Theme Media Center: Changing the Background
by Michael Healy @ 6:55 am on February 10th, 2009 in themes with 33 Comments and Permalink
Everyone wants to stand apart from the crowd, unfortunately Media Center doesn’t allow you to easily change the appearance of your setup. Windows 7 may have added better support for themes but Media Center has still ended up stuck with “boring blue.” There is hope though, it may not be easy but you can alter the look of your Media Center interface.
Step One: Backup Your Files!!
The first thing you should do is go to “C:\Windows\ehome” and and make two copies of the file “ehres.dll”. Save one to a folder for editing and save the other somewhere safe just in case you want to undo your changes.
You also need to apply this registry file. Download the file to your machine and double-click to apply the fix to your machine. Once you’ve done that right-click the original file and select “Take Ownership”. This allows the file to be replaced later on.
Step Two: Get an Image
You need an image to use for the background. The default is 500 pixels wide by 300 pixels high (500×300) but you can use images of varying height. This allows for high definition 1080p and 720p files to replace that boring low-res blue. For this guide lets use this image which can be downloaded from the author below:
Step Three: Insert into the ”ehres.dll” file
To edit the ehres.dll file a resource editor is required. For this guide you should download Restorator. The program isn’t free but does have a 30 trial availalbe for download. This editor allows you to view png files inside the dll file and works on x86 and x64 machines.
Once inside Restorator open the ehres.dll file you have copied to be edited. Expand the “RCData” section and scroll down until you find “Common.Animated.Background.png”. Right-click the file and select “assign > assign to” from the menu. Then browse to and select the background file you want to use.
Once that is complete save the file.
Step Four: Replace the original “ehres.dll”
Once you have your edited file (and your backup!) copy the edited file from where you have it saved and paste it into the “C:\Windows\ehome” directory replacing the old one. Remember you must have the “Take Ownership” registry fix applied to this file to allow it to be replaced.
Step Five: Launch Media Center
Now you should be able to launch Media Center and see your new background in place. The animated portions of the background will not have been changed, however. To change these you must replace “common.background.layer1.png”, “common.background.layer2.png” and “common.background.layer3.png”. These are the files that are loaded onto the screen to make it appear animated.
That’s all there is to changing your Media Center background! Keep in touch with Hack7MC for future theme guides for Windows 7 Media Center. Hopefully, this article will be the first of many to come.
Want to get even deeper? Look at this guide on creating an entire theme for Media Center! Be sure to follow along on the RSS Feed or Twitter as well to get all the latest information.
