Override Vista and XP’s Themed Buttons and Scrollbars Using a META Tag

By  on  

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.

Recent Features

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Drag and Drop MooTools File Uploads

    Honesty hour confession:  file uploading within the web browser sucks.  It just does.  Like the ugly SELECT element, the file input is almost unstylable and looks different on different platforms.  Add to those criticism the fact that we're all used to drag and drop operations...

  • By
    Create a Clearable TextBox with the Dojo Toolkit

    Usability is a key feature when creating user interfaces;  it's all in the details.  I was recently using my iPhone and it dawned on my how awesome the "x" icon is in its input elements.  No holding the delete key down.  No pressing it a...

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!