actually on a related note i have a problem beyond this - i've gotten past everything in this thread. hacked uxtheme file, shell setting in winnt.sif pointing to theme, theme copying over fine to windows\resources\themes\, theme service starting fine, but here's what happens: - in my winnt.sif, i only set an admin password, no autologin. - i have a cmdlines.txt and runonce.cmd and useraccounts.cmd per unattended.msfn.org and they work fine - no other reg setting or anything else related to themes in my cd settings when i get into windows, the new user account is set to default windows theme. HOWEVER, if i log out, and log in as administrator, then the custom theme defined in [shell] in winnt.sif is present there. so how do you get the theme set in the winnt.sif file to show up for the user defined in useraccounts.cmd? (i figure this may end up being the next question asked in this thread anyway...)