How radically can one change WinXP’s UI? Are there tools for doing this, or applications which execute some change or other? If they are third-party, is it legal?
-FrL-
There are a number of skinning utilities available for Windows; StyleXP, WinStep, Windows Blinds to name a few that spring to mind. Not sure if they violate the EULA (and I understand it is possible to have an argument over whether such violation is actually illegal).
There’s a tutorial here, for example, on how to make Windows look like Mac OSX.
Go here, download the UXTheme Multipatcher* and maybe one of shell patchers** while you’re at it.
Run 'em.
If you used a shell patcher then your icons and system animations will now look different. Your theme will not. That’s because you’ll need to download some new ones, which you’ll find in the Completed Visual Styles forum there.
To install a theme, you just need to unzip or unrar it into the themes directory which you’ll find in C:\Windows\resources hemes\
Once you’ve done that, just rightclick your desktop and select Properties then click the Appearance tab and select your new theme from the dropdown menu.
*That’s version 4, I think the latest one is version 5. v4 works fine for me though.
**I use the Tango one.
Final note: Don’t blame me if your computer blows up. If you don’t feel either brave or cheap, then pay for Windowblinds and Iconpackager, which are both fine programs that will do the job.
So it took four hours for the first oh-so-helpful Mac-fetishist post to appear. :rolleyes:
He didn’t ask for anchors for his next fishing trip.
Are you just asking out of idle curiosity, Frylock, or is there some specific change you’d like to achieve? - If the latter, then a few more details might enable people to better advise on the best solution.
One of my favorites is TXMouse: True X-Mouse Gizmo for Windows. It lets you do focus-follows-mouse without the window getting focus moving to the top and allows you send a window to the bottom of the stack with a right click on the menu bar. This is a fairly radical change to the focus/interaction model and not all applications play nice with it (for me, the most annoying being Visual Studio), but most applications work fine and TXMouse can be configured to ignore those that don’t.
I’m also a big fan of Process Explorer from www.sysinternals.com which can be used as an application or a replacement for the original task manager (the later being how I qualify it as a UI change). It provides much more process information including searching on file or dll handles (which really comes in handy when your trying to figure which applications have the file open you are trying to delete).
Given the amount of information that Microsoft publishes on changing virtually every aspect of the UI, example code, tweaking utilities and the hooks they built into the system to accomplish all of that, it seems doubtful that it in anyway affects the EULA.
In addition to getting programs that let you use ‘unsigned’ themes/styles, you can also just hack the registry key that controls this, and then you can download any theme/style and not have to worry about another program running in the background. I did this, because I had WindowsBlinds and it wasn’t working right, so I just did the direct approach. But this can seriously f-up your computer if you’re not careful (I just downloaded a program that hack the key for me, and it went just fine. But a friend did the exact same thing and her PC was fucked up and it took me a while to set it right again. Explorer shell kept crashing.)
This is my Win XP Pro laptop. I’m using Style XP for the general UI and ObjectDock for the Mac-like Dock.
The laptop is a tablet and I found the dock interface is easier to open commonly used software with the pen. I also like the look of the Apple computers but all my software is PC. I get the best of both worlds.
snork
I mean no offence to you Seven, but I don’t quite understand skinning Windows with the Mac OS X look down to the point of having an Apple logo. The dock functionality I can sort of understand but having everything exactly the same seems a little like having a Honda with a big wing and an Acura badge then calling it an NSX. Sure underneath the skin they both have an engine and wheels but it’s still just a Honda.
Meant to also ask: When the windows loaders and such are running is there appreciable lag or slowdown on an XP system?
motomoon: The apple logo was included in the Apple StyleXP skin. I can change it to something else, but I’m lazy that way.
I really just wanted a different look as I’ve been staring at Windows screens for years now. I like the glassy, slick interface of a Mac, so I picked that skin.
As for lag: That machine is a tablet so it has a bunch of extra XP tablet crap running. I had to bump the memory a week after I bought it to keep up with the tablet drivers. At 1.5gig RAM it is running just fine. StyleXP and ObjektDock don’t have much of an effect at this point.
I skinned my work desktop the same way and didn’t notice any lag.
I use VMware Workstation to run several different OS’s at a time on one box. I’ve used StyleXP to skin different VM XP installs to easily tell them apart when I’m bouncing between them. VM Workstation requires a fair amount of “juice” to run 3-4 OS’s at a time. Adding StyleXP to a couple didn’t seem to bog the host (or guest) system down any.
Given that, I have an older laptop which I will not install StyleXP on. I’m milking it for all it is worth right now with a minimum of services and process running.
As for the Honda/Acura analogy - I think of it more like I’ve had the same damn blue Honda for years so I had it painted with a stock Acura colour. At the paint shop one of the guys put an Acrua logo on the back and I’m too lazy to remove it.
I’m not a PC vs Mac guy. I’ve used them both, like them both, and they both have different uses. I just think the Windows UI is boxy and fugly (it’s so 1995! :)).