Windows customisation

[Whaleboy]

I think I'm completely in love with St Leo's screenshots on the various desktop threads over the years and I was wondering how it's done! I'll post a screenshot of my current desktop... I'm using a silver Luna theme which is pretty boring atm. Background gleaned from deviantart.

[St Leo]

Well, I am at work right now, but I'll do my best.

Patch your uxtheme.dll somehow. Neowin uxTheme Multipatcher should work.

Get a good theme and unzip it to a location loosely resembling /windows/resources/themes or something of that kind. There should be a readme.
Velvet Waves
Codename Opus

You should switch the theme by right-click on the desktop and going to the Appearance tab. Ignore the front tab. That changes too much and then you have to clean up the settings elsewhere.

CursorXP makes my cursors look nifty. IIRC, I use the Professional set bundled with it by default with one cursor changed.

[molly bloom]

Re: Windows customisation

Originally posted by Whaleboy
I'll post a screenshot of my current desktop... I'm using a silver Luna theme ...

There I was thinking it was flaming Uranus....

[St Leo]

Using 128x128 icons in WinXP. It's an easy registry hack, but a utility isn't hard to find either. In fact, I think you can get it to 72x72 by tweaking Display > Appearance > Advanced.

Actually, you don't want to use 128x128 icons. I've tried it for a while and Windows behaved badly. 64x64 is the best bet, but 72x72 is a fair compromise too.

Get a good icon changer. IconPhile is getting old and it can't change the XP start menu, but I still like it best. You should install it in the topmost folder of your icons collection.

Now, it's time to get some icons. Try:

http://weboso.deviantart.com/gallery/

http://www.miloszwl.com/porticons.html

http://mattahan.deviantart.com/gallery/

http://www.deviantart.com/view/9342636/ (png2ico utility)

http://www.deviantart.com/view/3959016/

[St Leo]

I also use the free version of ObjectDock as a Quicklaunch replacement. You have to disable a few things to strip it down to just that.

It supports icons in ICO and PNG formats. They should be located in subfolders in its directory. I tend to categorize by author name myself.

If you need a filler mediocre icon, it can be found:

http://www.wincustomize.com/Skins.aspx?LibID=29

http://www.google.com/search?q=PNG+icons

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=PNG+icons+128x128

Oh, and there's also http://www.foood.net/. I hate his stuff, but de gustibus non est disputandum.

[Whaleboy]

Thankyou so much!

I'm going to have a play and take a screenshot or two when I'm done

[Adagio]

I hate icons so I use Stardock's DesktopX (to get rid of the icons) and a theme found at www.wincustomize.com (you could also easily make one yourself). This way it's possible to have more functionality in less space looking much more organized...
And it doesn't take up any* CPU power

*Depending on the theme, but most don't

You can get a free trial of DesktopX that never stops working (only pops up with a msg to buy it every time you start the computer)

[Whaleboy]

Ah I hate that (the pop ups I mean). I've patched the uxtheme dll that St Leo indicated, and now I'm just experimenting with the "Longhorn Transformation Pack" (a pack of a couple dozen themes lifted from builds of Longhorn) http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=75768

As for the icons, I've got rid of all of them on my desktop using Tweak UI and now just finding a theme I like. Objectdock is good, but was a pain to find new Firefox and Thunderbird themes.

[Adagio]

There are ways around it...




Of course by this I mean to buy the software, then the popup goes away

[Adagio]

And I don't see what's good about objectdock... it's basicly just putting icons at the bottom or top of the screen, right?

[Whaleboy]

ObjectDock

My theming experiments aren't complete yet so bear with it. The winner thus far is what you see, one St Leo linked to called "Velvet Waves" (desktop was again nicked from DeviantArt). It shows the cool mouseover effect on ObjectDock which I'm using like a Quicklaunch bar (saves lots of unnecessary clicking on the start menu). Means I can have the taskbar on the top which Macifies everything .

[Nostromo]

And I don't see what's good about objectdock... it's basicly just putting icons at the bottom or top of the screen, right?

It looks purty

[Agathon]

It shows the cool mouseover effect on ObjectDock which I'm using like a Quicklaunch bar (saves lots of unnecessary clicking on the start menu).

Some people still don't believe this.

Means I can have the taskbar on the top which Macifies everything

Why not go the whole hog?

[Whaleboy]

Why not go the whole hog?

Buy me a G5 and we'll talk

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


Buy me a G5 and we'll talk

I don't know if I will make it before Apple goes out of business. You do know they are doomed, right?

Does Object Dock allow the dock icons to show status? Like so..