Override Vista and XP’s Themed Buttons and Scrollbars Using a META Tag
Written by David Walsh on December 26, 2007
The first thing I do to any fresh Windows XP or Vista install is change the theme to old-school "Windows Classic" theme. Square gray boxes, in my opinion, are much better than the awful "rounded", colored bars. The XP and Vista theme settings also bleed into Internet Explorer, shaping and color buttons in ways I don't want.
Luckily, using an HTML META tag, I can tell the browser to ignore the theme's settings and show the standard, gray button.
<meta http-equiv="MSThemeCompatible" content="No"/>
I'm not advocating this, simply showing how it can be done.