Giving Windows 7 a makeover
In the past few days I've looked into different ways to change the appearance and feel of Windows 7.
In terms of aesthetics, I think Windows 7 is a huge step up from Vista, but it still looks a bit... Windows-ey - Safe, blue, friendly and familiar to users of their earlier operating systems.
I felt like a change, and decided on a dark/grey style which I wanted to move into. You can already change some of the color themes and your background, but I wanted to see how far I could take it.
Yeah, I'm a geek.
Along the way I found there are whole communities devoted to customising the look of your desktop.
There are plenty of themes out there to cater to a range of tastes, and most come free of charge. It does take a bit of time and effort, though.
My finished product looks like this (click to zoom in a new window):
1. The new toolbar at the top
This is a program called Rocketdock - and it's a goodie. This free bit of genius substitutes for, or enhances, your normal windows taskbar and start menu.
It can be re-skinned to give different looks, and shortcuts are dragged and dropped like the Windows taskbar. When not in use, it can be set to hide automatically and can be put at the top or bottom of the screen.
Each of the icons can be customised - in my case, I found an awesome set of black glass icons on DeviantArt and replaced all of mine to match.
There are also options to adjust the animation, size, transparency and position of the dock. Rocketdock works wonders to make your desktop stand out from the crowd.
2. Overall colour and theme change.
It's not exactly simple, but you can customise the shell of Windows explorer to a different style.
The theme I went with is called ThaImpact. It is a grey, futuristic look which I liked, but check the website for a full list of changes with sample images. Some of the changes include:
Completely new taskbar and start menu look, with a larger clock, new progress bars, context menus and animations and more rounded windows and scroll bars for a smooth, futuristic look.
Getting it to work
Replacing your user interface is perhaps the hardest customisation, but here's a rough guide:
* Download a new theme - DeviantArt has some great ones.
* Patch your system so that it accepts custom themes. There is a program which will apply the changes to the necessary files for you called Uxtheme Patcher - that's the one I used.
* Follow the directions included with the theme. Be aware that if they don't come with any, you may have to look into taking ownership of your system files, and allowing admin access to those files, otherwise you won't be able to change anything.
Not all the themes require you to change system files, but any serious changes to the look and feel will require a little bit of tinkering, unfortunately.
* Replace any required files in your Windows/System folder. Remember to keep some backup copies of the original files in case anything goes wrong.
* Restart the computer and apply the theme in the desktop personalisation menu.
3. New mouse pointer set
There are programs designed solely to let you take greater control of your mouse cursors, like Cursor FX.
The free version will let you apply custom mouse themes which are much more advanced than a standard windows set.
You can change the trail style (leave smoke trails, sparkles, lots of others), use mouse pointers which animate when you click, and a number of other cool features - check the website for details.
One of the best parts about it is that you can download and install or change a whole set at once without changing them all piece-by-piece as you do in standard Windows when building a set.
Once again, check DeviantArt for plenty of sets. I went with a black glass/carbon theme.
4. Custom background and gadgets
I made myself a background using Photoshop, but there are plenty of awesome backgrounds available - just look around on Google image search. I recommend using the custom image size search to find images which fit your screen perfectly.
The gadgets on my screen are simple CPU/RAM/wireless monitors, and I gave them a custom glow by modifying the background image in Photoshop. This one's a bit tricky, and to go into how I did would be a whole new chapter.
The gadgets all came from here.
5. Windows taskbar cleanup
The last touches were to set my taskbar to appear smaller by ticking "use small icons" in the taskbar's properties window. I also changed some of the options in the Start Menu's properties box, to give it a clean, minimalist look.
I also removed all the desktop icons like My Computer and the Recycle bin, and the shortcut links in the taskbar, because these are now hidden away at the top in the Rocketdock.
What do you think? Do you get bored of the standard Windows look? Do you customise your desktop? Any good sites or programs you want to share?
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You can put lipstick on a bloated and greedy pig, but it's still a pig.
I'm like Scott, I don't spend enough time on my desktop to give a damn. I have things where I want them, and the important stuff is in the quick launch bar. I have a black background and a picture of Karen Gillan (Amy from Doctor Who) as my wallpaper.
What I want to know is can we get rid of the annoying "favourites" and "library" links in explorer 'cause I never use any of those features and they just get in the way of being able to look at my files and folders directly.
shouldnt you warn users that by using the uxtheme patch that
1. your violating the terms of the microsoft EULA 2. introducing an instability within the system by modifying system files. These files may get replaced at anytime with a service pack or hotfix. 3. Your breaking windows file protection designed to stop programs placing their own versions of system files onto a machine
Oh no, is this going to be another Office disaster! Looks far too much like a copy of Apple to me!
Yes, the revamped look reminds me of the Linux desktop. To that end, why not grab a copy of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx ? :-)
@Patrick #7: Probably because he wants to do more than surf the web & use Open Office.
I pimped a Win2K install with fancy icons & the like, my pointer was Babylon 5, the hourglass was a rotating Starfury, and all it did was annoy me after a short while & I set everything back. All I ever do these days is change the wallpaper picture as everything else is all but a complete & utter waste of time. If you're gaming your pointer changes are irrelevant because most of the time the game applies its own having taken complete control of the screen. Putting a toolbar at the top of your desktop is little more than putting another toolbar into your web-browser - largely pointless & an unnecessary drain on system resources.
Windows 7 has built in hot keys that are assigned by pinning an application to the task bar. Want to launch the application whose icon is 2nd on the right of the Windows button? Hold down the Windows key & press 2. You can assign 10 hot keys this way. With Aero applied, your desktop picture has the greatest effect on how your machine looks, especially the task bar.
The best way of changing your Windows desktop is to replace it with Gnome. Go download Ubuntu for free. As Shay #2 said, you can put lipstick on a pig...
#5 - In response and to build on your poitns: 1. In principal yes you are breaking a EULA. But in practice, NO. Do you really think anyone would ever get in trouble for patching uxtheme.dll? Microsoft et al have historically overlooked an enormous ammount of this kind of tinkering, not only because it's not worth their time but because it would likely fail. EULAs are a big grey area very untested in law.
You'll often find copyright law and consumer law overrules anything companies try to put in their EULAs.
Indeed one *should* have a fundamental right to modify anything one owns. Food for thought: do you own your PC? Or does microsoft?. It becomes a different issue when you distribute your modifications.
2. Screwing up uxtheme.dll should be relatively harmless, if indeed it does cause a problem you might end up without themes loading. But messing with your system files permissions could be dangerous. Perhaps only take ownership of the *one* file.
You should not undertake this kind of modification without troubleshooting skill to fix it in case it goes wrong.
Tinkering with things is a great way to learn. Lord knows its how many of us in the IT world got our careers.
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I'm a bit of an oddity here. I've hardly ever changed my wallpaper let alone anything else. I guess its because I rarely have anything to do with the desktop. Whenever I'm using the computer I'm either on the net or in a game. I do have a screen-saver active, but thats only a standard one. I've tried others from time to time and kept getting virus reports when I did so I stopped it.
Oddly your customised desktop reminds me a lot of a version of Linux I use on an old computer. Maybe its a residual memory thing creeping in.