[quote user="jwatte"]The saddest thing? When DXUT thread safety came out, perhaps three years ago, I sent this feedback to directx@microsoft.com. I guess the message arrived on a "don't care" day.[/quote] Recommend you file a bug in connect.  See this directxdev ...

The texture can be found: C:\Program Files\Microsoft DirectX SDK (March 2008)\Samples\Media\UI Use CDXUTDialog:Init( CDXUTDialogResourceManager* pManager, bool bRegisterDialog, LPCWSTR pszControlTextureFilename ) to pass in a custom one.  Take a look at CDXUTDialog::InitDefaultElements() for how the default one is used.