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Vista gives you two themes to select from, your Aero theme and your windows classic theme. But how long do you stay without getting bored? Get new themes, and install them, before that, you need to follow this tutorial.

More desktop customization, and my search for the free windows manager takes me to Styles XP. But, it is neither free nor is it available for Windows XP….So, my search continues until I find Code Gazer’s VistaGlazz. Vista Glazz lets me install third party themes, visual styles for Vista (and the best part is, it is free..)

Step 1:

Install VistaGlazz and run the program.

Now select the second icon (the one that looks like a shade card (the tick mark will be not be present until you run the program once. Follow the instructions and you are all ready to rock.

Step 2:

You can find vista themes all over the internet. I prefer deviantART for all my desktop customization needs. To illustrate, let us use the Leopard 1.0a theme by Masterhack.

Download the file by clicking on the links on the left of the page. Unzip the file after you have saved it. Copy all the files to the following folder on your hd:

C:\Windows\Resources\Themes

Click on the Leopard.theme and apply it. Done. Enjoy your new theme.

Installation of theme should make sure that you no longer need to use Objectbar as mentioned in my earlier post which lets you make your desktop look like a Mac.

This is how my screen looks like now.

Top secret Geek stuff (what, the vistaglazz app does)

It replaces three files on your hard drive (inside the windows/system32 folder) This enables you to add new themes other than the default themes which Microsoft has provided you with. These files are available for your version of windows at Within Windows

IMPORTANT:

• The theme file is a rar format (a compression format similar to zip) . You will need winrar to unrar it (thanks to Sabrina for reminding me that I need to provide a link)
• This tutorial is only for Windows Vista. For Windows XP, I guess you don’t have an option but to buy Styles XP.
• Do not try this tutorial if you have Vista Home Basic Version.
• In case you have already installed Service pack for Windows Vista, download VistaGlazz from here (instead of the link at the beginning of the post)
• There is a chance that things could go wrong and your computer could explode, implode, crash or become a black hole after trying out my tutorial. So, do it only if you know what you are doing and you are willing to take a risk.
• The author, website or anyone in this universe is not responsible for your actions after reading this tutorial, in fact, they weren’t even responsible for your actions before you read this.

Its been a long time since I made desktop customization except for the regular change of the wallpaper that I do…So, I decided it was time to spice up my desktop and decided to go for the MacOS look…I already had the best windows look, since I had Vista. So now how do I go about making my desktop looking like MacOS? First a little basics on the Mac world for all those MS Windows lovers out there…

Macs run the OS X which succeed the Mac OS operating system, and you might be interested to know that all of Mac OSX versions have been named after the big cats family like the OSX puma, panther, Jaguar, leopard and so on…The latest in the line of the cats is the snow leopard..and here we have a screenshot which should make things a bit more clear

Now that we know how the interface looks lets work on changing the interface..The first important part of the OSX interface is the “dock” which you will find at the bottom of the screen..
So, we download that one. I found two free alternatives to the “dock” for windows, one is Objectdock from Stardock and the other is Rocketdock from Punklabs. There are other alternatives too, but these are the two I decided to try out…Stardock has been a company synonymous with the best windows skinning programs like Windowblinds, DesktopX etc..and after trying out both of the products, I decided, much to my surprise that Rocketdock worked better for me, it was simple and easier to use..but I would say that making the choice is merely a matter of random selection.

Now we have Rocketdock installed, lets load it. Add icons, right click the dock to add new icons, separators and docklets (like clocks, weather icons etc..)
I write this post primarily for windows users and so I would know how much have come to love the convenience of minimizing to the taskbar. So, right click on the dock -> dock settings -> General tab and enable the “Minimize windows to the dock” checkbox.
The second app we need to download is, Objectbar. This is for the top bar and also to ensure that you continue to have access to your tray icons and to make the transformation complete.

lets get the last bit of the interface quick now, the wallpaper. You can get the original set here.
The dock icons are usually .png icons and you can download them as per your requirement from deviantART.

And this is how my desktop looks now…

The disclaimer part
I love windows and I love the mac as well. I do not have a Mac. All copyrights, trademarks, brandnames are all properties of their corresponding owners. This is not a post for Mac purists. It is for an ordinary windows user who wants to add some spice to his desktop. It wont change your windows to make it look and feel as good as Mac. you should get a Mac if you want the experience…

Update Aug.07, 2009: Get OSX font smoothing for windows as well!