Exchange Server Cookbook

8.12. Creating OWA 2003 Themes

Problem

You want to create a new theme or skin for OWA 2003 to make it more compatible with your organization's existing web applications.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

To create the new files for your theme, do the following:

1. Log on to the Exchange Server computer running OWA.

2. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the \Program Files\Exchsrvr\Exchweb\Themes directory.

3. You should see five existing directories named 0 through 4. These directories represent the themes that ship with Exchange Server 2003. Copy one of these directories to a new directory and rename it to an easy-to-remember identifier. It does not have to be a number.

4. Go into this new directory. You should see nine graphic files and a CSS file named OWAColors.css.

5. Edit the graphic files to match your desired appearance, but don't change their dimensions.

6. Edit the contents of the OWAColors.css file to change the various color elements used by OWA to complement the colors in your altered graphic elements.

7. Register your theme so it can be tested.

8. When you are happy with your theme, copy this folder to all of your OWA servers. Be sure to register the theme on all of them.

To register your theme so that it's visible to OWA users through the Options page, do the following:

1. Log on to the Exchange Server computer running OWA.

2. Open Regedit and navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeWeb\OWA\Themes.

3. Create a new string value under the above subkey. You ...