It’s been available for a little over a week now on Theme7MC and pictured in quite a few of the guides recently here on Hack7MC but I though we would do a short feature to highlight the new Midnight Magic theme for Windows 7 Media Center.

Featuring stock artwork from FractalAngel of DeviantArt the background provides an excellent contrast between vibrant color and subtle detail while still providing superior readability. Pop-up dialogs and menus provide a view of the finer details with high resolution close-ups of the more subdued areas.

To install the theme download the package from Theme7MC and extract it to your hard drive. If you haven’t previously applied a theme to your Media Center you’ll also need to download the Take Ownership registry fix and apply it to your ehres.dll file.

In order to apply the fix, download and execute the registry file applying it to your registry. Then open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows\ehome\ then locate ehres.dll. Next right-click the file and select Take Ownership. A command prompt should appear, execute the command and then close.

Afterward, apply the theme by running the patch file included in the theme package. Run the patch as an administrator by right-clicking and selecting Run As Administrator. Make certain that the patch dialog points to the location of your ehres.dll file and press start. The patch should apply the theme to your Windows 7 Media Center and notify your of successful patching.

Afterward simply re-launch Media Center to see the changes have taken effect. To undo the process you’ll need to open C:\Windows\ehome\ and locate ehres backup.dll and rename it to ehres.dll.

If you enjoy this theme be sure to bookmark Theme7MC or join the RSS Feed and keep checking back for the newest themes to be released. You can also upload your own creations on the Submit A Theme page!