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November 27, 2013 1,361 views

Windows 8 Aero Lite theme and how to enable it

How to create and install Aero Lite theme and save Windows 8 system resources

The testing builds of Windows 8 contains Aero Lite theme that allows users to disable various effects of full Windows Aero and save system resources. In final Windows 8 user cannot set it manually in Personalised option like in test builds. However, these instructions will show you how to do it.

Windows Aero Lite theme can help when you need to improve the performance of Windows 8 on a slow hardware or virtual systems.

Aero Lite theme allows Windows to disable various effects of full Aero theme and save system resources.

Aero Lite theme replaced the Windows Basic theme in older Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

Windows 8 Aero Lite

Windows 8 Aero Lite enabled

The final version of Windows 8 tries to enable Aero Lite automatically after a successful installation and hardware check and the user cannot it set manually in "Personalise" option like it was the case in test builds. However, with the following instructions will show you how you can do it.

Create Aero Lite theme file in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1

Go to the Windows 8 desktopopen Run option with Win + R shortcut type resourcesclick on OK button.

Windows 8 Run open resources folder
Run option

Open Themes subfolder in Resources and copy aero.theme file for example to desktop (Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V etc.).

Windows 8 resources themes
Themes folder in Resources

Open aero.theme in Notepadclick by right mouse button on file → Open with option → Select Notepad

Windows 8 Theme edit
Edit .theme file with Notepad

Replace string DisplayName=@%SystemRoot%\System32\themeui.dll,-2013 with DisplayName=Aero Lite

Windows 8 Aero edit theme
aero.theme editing
 

Replace string Path=%ResourceDir%\Themes\Aero\Aero.msstyles with Path=%ResourceDir%\Themes\Aero\aerolite.msstyles

Windows 8 aero lite style
aero.theme eiditing
 

Click on File menu → SaveClose Notepad and rename aero.theme to aerolite.theme.

Copy the aerolite.theme file back to Resources\Themes folder.

Windows 8 aerolite theme resource
Copy aerolite.theme to Themes folder

Click by right mouse button on desktop → select Personalise option → Installed Themes and click on Aero Lite.

Windows 8 Installed Themes
Select Aero Lite theme

Now various effects of full Windows Aero are disabled and you save system resources for faster work of your computer.

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