Vista MUI Theme and Templates (WIP)

While working on an open source project in my free time, I decided I wanted to sex up the installer to make it look more at home in Vista. The only NSIS graphics I found after some searching was monki's beautiful Orange Vista MUI theme. However, I was bummed to learn that no templates were provided (unlike the original XPish Orange theme) and derivations are not encouraged.

I ended up scouring my Vista system files for any art assets that might be useful. From various icons (windows update, ultimate extras, bitlocker) I pieced together a "virgin" copy of the blue software box that seems to be used in a few places around Vista. I also stuck on the plus and X I found in various other places, hoping they sufficiently convey "Add" and "Remove".

I'd basically like to ask the community if this sort of art would be useful, and if it would be worth refining and making a more comprehensive package for this style (icons that scale well, templates for all graphics that go in prefabbed MUI installers, perhaps some instructions on how to easily adapt the templates).

The first picture shows the basic concept of "Add" and "Remove". The second picture shows a wizard banner mock-up on the left, and an example of an adaptation on the right. The attached file is a GIMP image with layers labeled and arranged for easy playing/editing (it is compressed so the forum will accept it).

Wizard banner GIMP image.

Certainly I vote Yes. Just make sure you wouldn't mess with any copyrighted material.

Wow, yes, I really like the look of these!

Originally posted by Red Wine
Certainly I vote Yes. Just make sure you wouldn't mess with any copyrighted material.

This is another concern of mine. As I mentioned, the graphics are basically lifts from various Microsoft icons. That probably violates copyright in some way. My gut feeling is that it's probably not a big deal since MS encourages 3rd party apps to be as consistent as possible with their OSes, and because "everybody else is doing it" (I have seen many adaptations of this box around the web). 🙄

I will have to do some investigating to see what they permit.

The box looks very nice! Without a background it would already be a good wizard image. However, you do need to redesign a similar box from scratch instead of using Microsoft graphics. We cannot include it in the NSIS distribution if there are concerns regarding copyrights.

I highly doubt the "box" can cause any Copyright problems, as long as it's not an exact copy of a Microsoft image. But the "Quake III Arena" icon is copyrighted by id Software, that's for sure 😉

A box picture should be no problem, but it cannot be a copy of a Microsoft icon.