[Jatin]

What are Bricopacks?
Bricopacks are universal shell packs, which can change the appearance of Windows XP, within a few clicks. Transformation packs are always prone to hassle, but Bricopacks are the safest in every respect till date. These packs are compatible with all the Windows XP editions (Home or Pro, Server 2003, Media Center and Tablet Edition) with or without any service pack.
Note: Windows x64 (64 bit) is not compatible.

You can download some good Bricopacks from here:
BricoPack Elements Suite
BuufXP Universal Shellpack
TrucsenVrac 11 Universal ShellPacks
CrystalXP Bricopacks

Are Bricopacks fully compatible with SP3?
Further everything has been derived from crystalxp.net:

The answer : YES BUT...

First, our tests fell on the "Bricopack Vista Inspirat 2" which is currently the most used around the world. You can note that "Bricopack Crystal Clear" works like "Vista Inspirat 2", so the following text can be applied to these two Bricopacks.

If a user who already has the Bricopack on his Windows XP SP2 wants to install the SP3, he can install it without problem, but when he reboots his PC : the wonderful Vista theme has disappeared and it's replaced by an appearance like Windows 95 ! How awful !
Why ? Because the installation of the SP3 erases the installation of the Uxtheme.dll patch, which allows us to use other visual styles than those created by Microsoft...
To remedy this problem, don't use the "update" function, it hasn't been created for that. You must uninstall completely the pack, and then you can reinstall it. In this way, after the reinstallation, all will work well.

What we recommend people who have already a Bricopack installed and who want to install Windows XP SP3 :
1 - Before installing the SP3, uninstall the Bricopack and reboot your computer.
2 -Install the SP3 by following all the instructions.
3 - After having installed the SP3, check that all is working as it should, then you can reinstall the Bricopack.

What we recommend people who haven't a Bricopack and who want to install Windows XP SP3 :
1 - Install the SP3 by following all the instructions.
2 - After having installed the SP3, check that all is working as it should and install quickly a Bricopack ! The blue appearance of Windows XP is too old-fashioned !

What you must do if you have installed the SP3 without having uninstalled beforehand the Bricopack :
1 - Don't panic when you see the horrible appearance of Windows 95 !
2 - Uninstall the Bricopack and reboot your computer.
3 - If you have Internet Explorer 7, check that it is working as it should. If the browser looks like IE6, reinstall IE7.
4 - Reinstall the Bricopack and reboot your computer.

Don't forget that the RECOMMENDED SOLUTION is to uninstall the Bricopack before installing the SP3, then you can reinstall the Bricopack, after the installation of the SP3.

[Johnnyboy]

There's no Bricopack for Vista yet?

[Rich246]

I was about to post the same thing ... I'd love the longhorn one... LONG LIVE LONGHORN!!!

Edit: I forgot to ask, what would happen if I did install one of those on Vista would it screw it up?

This post has been edited by Rich246: 14 March 2008 - 12:21 AM

[Seventh Surfer]

Quote

what would happen if I did install one of those on Vista would it screw it up?

Yes, shell packs replace your system files so it is strictly recommended to install them on Windows Xp only.

[darkredbbb]

Awesome! I Love the BuufXP one, it's nice to see something other than aqua/glass designs

Jatin, on Mar 12 2008, 08:07 PM, said:

BricoPack Elements Suite
BuufXP Universal Shellpack
TrucsenVrac 11 Universal ShellPacks
CrystalXP Bricopacks

The second and third links are the same..

[SharmanNet]

Anyone from CrystalXP or Trucsenvrac or Bricomix, are you guys developing Bricopack installer for Vista?

[KaneBT]

thanks for the great help Jatin!

[The Skins Factory]

What are these exactly? Is there a developer's site?

[SharmanNet]

The Skins Factory, on Apr 28 2008, 03:41 AM, said:

What are these exactly?

Bricopacks are enhanced shell packs which include modified shell32.dll, msgina.dll, explorer.exe etc. These are more safe than simple modified system files because of it's compatibility with all the Windows XP editions. When Windows is updated, some of the modifications get revert back, but not in the case of Bricopacks. All the credit goes to Bricomix for creating this awesome installer.

The Skins Factory, on Apr 28 2008, 03:41 AM, said:

Is there a developer's site?

Bricomix.net is down, but you can find all the Bricopacks on the above posted four links.

[The Skins Factory]

SharmanNet, on Apr 28 2008, 06:58 AM, said:

The Skins Factory, on Apr 28 2008, 03:41 AM, said:

What are these exactly?

Bricopacks are enhanced shell packs which include modified shell32.dll, msgina.dll, explorer.exe etc. These are more safe than simple modified system files because of it's compatibility with all the Windows XP editions. When Windows is updated, some of the modifications get revert back, but not in the case of Bricopacks. All the credit goes to Bricomix for creating this awesome installer.

The Skins Factory, on Apr 28 2008, 03:41 AM, said:

Is there a developer's site?

Bricomix.net is down, but you can find all the Bricopacks on the above posted four links.

Thanks.

I was hoping to read more about the features.

We change the shellstyles with Hyperdesk but i was wondering if these offer an even better experience and more a versatile skinning environment.

[dlb]

SharmanNet, on Mar 14 2008, 04:32 PM, said:

Anyone from CrystalXP or Trucsenvrac or Bricomix, are you guys developing Bricopack installer for Vista?

Yes, we are working on a new installer

[Jatin]

^
Pleased to know about it.

[gerontium]

Jatin, on Mar 12 2008, 06:07 PM, said:

The answer : YES BUT...



First, our tests fell on the "Bricopack Vista Inspirat 2" which is currently the most used around the world. You can note that "Bricopack Crystal Clear" works like "Vista Inspirat 2", so the following text can be applied to these two Bricopacks.

If a user who already has the Bricopack on his Windows XP SP2 wants to install the SP3, he can install it without problem, but when he reboots his PC : the wonderful Vista theme has disappeared and it's replaced by an appearance like Windows 95 ! How awful !
Why ? Because the installation of the SP3 erases the installation of the Uxtheme.dll patch, which allows us to use other visual styles than those created by Microsoft...
To remedy this problem, don't use the "update" function, it hasn't been created for that. You must uninstall completely the pack, and then you can reinstall it. In this way, after the reinstallation, all will work well.

What we recommend people who have already a Bricopack installed and who want to install Windows XP SP3 :
1 - Before installing the SP3, uninstall the Bricopack and reboot your computer.
2 -Install the SP3 by following all the instructions.
3 - After having installed the SP3, check that all is working as it should, then you can reinstall the Bricopack.

What we recommend people who haven't a Bricopack and who want to install Windows XP SP3 :
1 - Install the SP3 by following all the instructions.
2 - After having installed the SP3, check that all is working as it should and install quickly a Bricopack ! The blue appearance of Windows XP is too old-fashioned !

What you must do if you have installed the SP3 without having uninstalled beforehand the Bricopack :
1 - Don't panic when you see the horrible appearance of Windows 95 !
2 - Uninstall the Bricopack and reboot your computer.
3 - If you have Internet Explorer 7, check that it is working as it should. If the browser looks like IE6, reinstall IE7.
4 - Reinstall the Bricopack and reboot your computer.

Don't forget that the RECOMMENDED SOLUTION is to uninstall the Bricopack before installing the SP3, then you can reinstall the Bricopack, after the installation of the SP3.

After a recent reinstall of windows xp which for the hell of it included service pack 3 IE 7 etc so that the system was as uptodate as possible I went out and found the latest version of Buuf shellpack my shellpack of choice. I had patched the new sp3 uxtheme.dll from my opensuse partition that's linux for those that don't know (which also uses Buuf duece in gnome kde rox xfce4 and when I have finished the modifications yast2 as well, a few embeded yast2 images are hard to find.) so that windows file protection wasn't a porblem, so I know it was all done in the right order, BUT, I am still reporting a bug which is outside of windows and probably due to unfit coding practices but some older software after the shellpack is installed on service pack 3 bugs out gives off error messages about shell32.dll being moved to the wrong memory address please contact the vendor for a new .dll I seem to remember the same problem in one of the pre sp3 xp updates. I know my xp is up to date. I know that the install is fresh, and that on most software installed on the system the shellpack works great and as most application software on my system is open source you can be sure it is of good quality. But that one little niggle annoyed me, I often use firegraphic 6, and this may help, firegraphic 6 which is an image browser with exellent built in control for printing images etc works okay on service pack 3 with the shellpack but only after installation, the problem was first noticed when I realised I had forgotten to intsall firegraphic 6 and went to intsall it, the setup program caused the glitch, I then noticed and old and currently outmoded mp3 ripper and sound file converter, was open source, who knows now? "\Program Files\Free CD-DA Extractor 4.8\ezcddaxfc.exe" brought up the same error message, obvious answer is uninstall the mp3 ripper converter etc and find an alternative, which I will porbably do but I thought I'd let someone know that the shellpack has some issues and that windows xp service pack 3 isn't entirely a good fix.