first i'll just say that i'm on Vista Home Premium in case the skins is just another thing i can't do anything with on vista
i downloaded the Airflow skin from the vlc site and i put it in "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\skins" and i also put "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\skins\Airflow.vlt" in the "Skin to use" in preferences under Interface>Main Interfaces>Skins with the advanced settings checked
but its still the default skin after i click save