How to Get Blue Toolbar Back in Microsoft Office 2003 While Using 3rd Party Themes in Windows XP

If you like this article, please share it with your friends and contacts on Google Plus, Facebook and Twitter using following buttons so that they can also enjoy the article:

Most of us use custom 3rd party themes in Windows XP to change its look. But if you use Office 2003, you might have noticed that these custom themes remove the default blue toolbar color in Office 2003 applications and you get the classic grey color instead.

This tutorial will help you in getting back the blue toolbar back in Office 2003 under Windows XP:

Problem Reason:

Actually Office 2003 checks whether you are using default "Luna" theme or not. If it finds that you are using any other theme, it starts showing the ugly classic toolbar.

Solution:

The only work around for this problem is to rename your 3rd party windows theme's msstyles file to "luna.msstyles", e.g., if you are using our "VistaVG" theme, then just rename the "VistaVG.msstyles" to "luna.msstyles". That's it.

The .msstyles file can be found in "Windows\Resources\Themes\custom_theme_name\" folder.

For WindowBlinds users, open "%windir%\wb.ini" file and add MakeOfficeBlue=1 in [global] section. You can change 1 to 2 or 3 to change the color to Green and Silver respectively.

Other similar articles that may interest you:

This article was posted by VG in following section: Microsoft Office, Troubleshooting, Windows XP, Windows XP Themes.

If you enjoyed this article, you can subscribe to our RSS feed or free newsletter to get all new articles directly in your Inbox. Also check out our most popular articles and archive to read other interesting articles. If you have some news or tip to share, please send us.

Have You Checked Out Following Popular Articles?

Unknown

Nice! I finally have the blue toolbar back!Thanks!
Matt

where is VistaVG Ultimate.msstyles located? Im using vistavg theme.
VG

^^ Open drive where Windows is installed (Most probably C:). Go to "Windows\Resources\Themes" folder. There you'll find the VistaVG folder.
Steve

Hi I have the Windows XP Deluxe 2009 - By M.Baran.
And I'm Using the SevenVGRC Theme.
They all have the extension .msstyles
but I made the extension appear.
My office is still grey =[
Snowyfox

What about Royale?
Ben

when i try to Rename folder "Luna" it says it is in use. How to do i change it?
VG

^^ First apply another theme, then rename Luna theme.
Harold

IT WORKS!!! Thanks VG
Kevin

Ah, I completely forgot to try again.

I'm back with more knowledge, and I just used Unlocker, which I've had for a while now ;)

And yay it worked!

Here is your long overdue thanks!!!

THANK YOU!!!
Tony B.

Holy carp, thanks for this tip! Here's a tip for you guys: after renaming the msstyles file to luna.msstyles, double-click it to apply, because it won't show up in the Appearance tab unless it is the same name as the folder. At least that's how it works on my two XP boxen.