Vista Customization on the Rise

Vista, Microsoft’s latest version of Windows, was shipped about a year ago. Ever since the betas I’ve been waiting to see true Aero theming, or really any theme support or customization at all. Aero amused me at first, but I quickly became tired of it’s blue lines and graphical anomalies, and really wished that some themes would become available. I even took a crack at it myself, with some success.

Aero Themes

Anyway, I come to you today bearing the news that it is now fully themable, and viable Vista themes are easy to attain.

A program called “VistaGlazz” can do the dll patching, which you’ll remember from XP if you’ve used custom XP themes without a program like StyleXP before. You can get VistaGlazz at http://www.codegazer.com/vistaglazz.

Once installed, you’ll have to click through a few buttons and it’ll do some patching, and then a reboot will be required. At this point you’re ready to install some custom themes!

I’ve found that thus far, the best place for Vista themes is actually DeviantArt. With a bit of searching one can come across this special section for them: http://browse.deviantart.com/customization/skins/vistautil/visstyles/.

Keep in mind that since Vista theming is relatively new, you’ll have to choose a further back date than “24 hours” to see anything, at least as I type this. I am currently using “NEXTLevel_by_Vathanx”, an excellent black theme that I think equates to what Royale Noir was for XP.

Get the theme here.

Windows Customization

As well as working on Vista, these programs work on multiple versions of Windows, including XP.

3D Cube Desktop for Windows

In addition to the new community Aero themes support, I’ve finally found the perfect solution to the Windows 3d cube desktop, or rather the lack thereof. As many of you may know, Beryl, a Linux themes suite, has far surpassed the technology for a pretty desktop in any other OS, even OSX and Vista. With a program called “DeskSpace”, one can get the same smooth and functional cube one has in Beryl. Now all we need is a bouncy Window distorter and I’ll be happy, hah.

DeskSpace Official Page

Icon Effects

Though what I’m about to post is in no way new, or even new to me, I’ve not spoken about it here before. There is a program known as “UberIcon”, which enables excellent icon effects for your typical icon in Windows. From bouncing, to expanding outlines, to shattering, UberIcon has it all. You can check that out here: http://ubericon.com/

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 5:03 pm and is filed under tweaking, windows. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.