Windows Server 2008: Install Desktop Experience to Utilize Vista Theme

Contributor Icon Contributed by Rob Rogers  
Tag Icon Tagged: Windows  

If you are tired of using the Windows Classic theme on your Server 2008, you can install Desktop Experience so that you can enjoy the eye candy goodness of the Vista theme. Desktop Experience will also install Windows Media Player, Windows Sidebar and photo gallery. Follow these steps to install Desktop Experience and liven up your server:


1. Click Start and select Server Manager

2. When the Server Manager window appears, go to the left pane and select Features.

3. On the right, click the Add Features link.

4. Check the Desktop Experience checkbox

5. Click Next.

6. Click Install

7. When the installation is complete, Windows will notify you that you must restart your server to complete the process.

After you have rebooted, go to Services and make sure that the Themes service is started and set to Automatically Start (thanks DTron!). After that, you are ready to change the theme on your server.

1. Right-click the desktop and select Personalize.

2. Select Theme.

3. From the Theme Settings window, use the Theme dropdown and select the Windows Vista theme.

4. Click OK.

So you go from a boring look like this:

To a much better visual experience:

 

37 Comments -


  1. vishal said on December 16, 2008

    thanx

  2. rayson said on January 2, 2009

    doesn’t seem to work on mine

  3. MulberryTree said on March 11, 2009

    To find Services: Under the Server Manger:
    Configure>Services>Themes>Properties
    Yeah, I’m sure most of you are thinking duh, but I had trouble finding it.

  4. JJ said on March 29, 2009

    UGH, I prefer windows classic. If you are in the biz, ie, a software developer, you might. But the way you make it sound, it’s a no-brainer, and in my opinion, I’ll stick with classic.

  5. TGP1994 said on April 19, 2009

    I love the aero themes. I’m not much of a developer like the poster who I think will be above me in this post, but I’m a sucker for shiny aero icons :P

    Oh, and I love the fact that Server 2008 is free to students :)

  6. pankaj mourya said on April 29, 2009

    this is a best themes
    please send me themes for me free

  7. raj said on June 16, 2009

    nice site

  8. Anonymous said on July 12, 2009

    thanks for this nice post

  9. Anonymous said on July 22, 2009

    hi,
    am getting this error message

    ” the theme could not be loaded because the theme service is not running”

    even after starting the theme service.Can anyone help me out.

  10. Anonymous said on August 3, 2009

    run: services.msc
    start service called “Themes”

  11. Anonymous said on August 11, 2009

    it good sugetion

  12. Anonymous said on August 11, 2009

    i want a somethink defferent look of server
    thats why i m want somethink defferent thems

  13. Dennis Nii Atuquaye Okai said on August 22, 2009

    well this kinda cool cos it is really helping me as a server administrator

  14. Senthil said on September 9, 2009

    thanks for the help.
    really helped.

    Senthil.

  15. balaji said on September 28, 2009

    Really helped and cool tip

  16. Anonymous said on January 1, 2010

    Yeah. You can open services in most Windows operating systems by WIN+R -> services.msc

  17. Anonymous said on January 3, 2010

    Dear shamanstears,

    When I open Server Manger the left pane does not inlcude “features”.
    It only lists:
    - System tools
    - Storage
    - Services and Aplications.

    What should I do to fix this?

    Thanks a lot!

  18. Anonymous said on January 11, 2010

    Are you sure you didn’t open Computer Management instead of Server Management

  19. Anonymous said on March 5, 2010

    I don’t have Server manager on my start up… is there another way to download?

  20. Anonymous said on April 13, 2010

    Thanx

  21. Anonymous said on July 7, 2010

    Am I the only one that wants to disable the Vista theme? I always pick one of the simpler ones as I don’t want the theme to be one of the factors that make my computer slow.
    Sandra Millhouse @ Virtual servers UK

  22. Pallab_server said on July 15, 2010

    i love this

  23. guest said on July 24, 2010

    I’m pretty sure he said “EVEN AFTER STARTING THE THEME SERVICE…”

    I’m having this same issue…

  24. Encee said on August 19, 2010

    Do you know how big is this Desktop Experience? Because, I need to install the Disk Clean UP Manager and I only got 200MB left in my hard drive. Should this be enough to install the Desktop Feature? You can email me at encee_tee@yahoo.com. Thank very much for your time.

  25. jamil said on December 21, 2010

    i added features..
    then i opened themes from personalize…
    but there is no option for vista themes….

  26. jamil said on December 21, 2010

    i just found the sol

  27. Soren Fog said on February 15, 2011

    I had the same problem as Jamil above. I installed the Desktop Experience and enabled the Themes service. But I also saw no selectable “Vista” theme in the Themes dropdown listbox.

    So I started Googling and ended here. I followed the link in the first reply above, and the last (expandable) link on that page states basically that “not all video cards support Aero”. My server 2008 runs in a Virtual PC under Win7, and Win7 Virtual PC emulates a S3 Trio, which probably doesn’t support Aero. But it could at least support the Vista Basic theme. It seems the conclusion is that it is not possible to use anything but Windows Classic in a virtual Server 2008.

    I buy top notch hardware both in my company and at my home (test) set up. My PCs and network can cope with the demanding graphics, even in a virtual PC or as a remote desktop (I know when to disable features due to bandwidth limitations). I use various themes and coloring to distinguish the VPCs we use in my company, both for my own and my colleagues’ benefit. With every other Windows system we can set themes up easily, it’s only with Server 2008 we got this silly issue (we are not using ANY Vistas, but lots of old XPs, some server 2003s and many new Win7 coming in now). At the same time we wanted to move the 2003 servers to 2008, but sorely missing this option of using themes to distinguish servers.

    Any way around this problem? Can I somehow override the default behaviour and force a Vista Basic or Aero theme on Server 2008 despite the (virtualized) hardware limitations?

  28. Electeh Muktsar said on March 9, 2011

    I had the same problems. I installed the Desktop Experience ans enable the theme service. There is no selectable vista theme in thesettings

  29. Clydedoris said on March 14, 2011

    me too. i couldn’t find the vista themes even after enabling the desktop themes.

  30. stumbler said on March 30, 2011

    You may have to load the theme
    Go to “Browse…”
    Navigate to C:WindowsResourcesThemes and select aero.theme
    That gets Vista into the themes, but I still have the problem getting the error “theme could not be loaded because the theme service is not running”
    Even after stopping and starting the service
    But this is with RDC and it seems that remote may not support this…

  31. Karthik Be06 said on May 17, 2011

    I am not able to enable Desktop experience in Window 2008 standard R2 chinese simplyfied, could any one help me on this

  32. Jobyjoseph777 said on June 18, 2011

    thanks …

  33. Concoctclicks said on July 9, 2011

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  34. Concoctclicks said on July 9, 2011

    Fluorescent Pigments,Fluorescent Dispersions,Plastic colouration,Textile Printing,Printing Ink,Fluorescent,Latex coloration,Candles,Crayons,
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  35. hadi said on December 31, 2011

    thank u and i am really great to see ur website

  36. Mancharagopan said on January 10, 2012

    Must Start the theme service before apply the theme.

  37. Blake said on January 23, 2012

    I can’t get this to work, the only option that becomes available is Windows 7 Aero theme… It won’t allow me to click this.

 

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