Turn your Windows XP PC into Vista
Many of us still think Vista is too Expensive and of course it is. Another bad thing about Vista is the compatibility. So, why not just turn our Windows XP into Vista. I had installed Vista ultimate on my PC a Couple of months ago. It worked fine but I really hated it because:
- I was not able to install my Sound card on it.
- I was not able to Install Nero on it.
Vista has a bunch of new features over XP, especially the Windows Aero and 3D flip. Vista is all about these two things. But Everything else is like XP, and XP is also much faster than Vista. So I got rid of Windows Vista. But I really missed the Aero effect.
After a month I figured how to turn my Windows XP in Windows Vista. It looked so much similar to Vista that my brother got confused so did everybody else who saw it. Here are the screen shots of my Windows XP PC which look like Vista.
Here is how you can also turn XP in Vista:
First you need to patch Uxtheme.dll, because the themes won’t work if you have not patched it. Download this patcher which will do it for you and then Restart your PC.
Next thing you need to do is to find a good theme. The one I used in the above screen shots can be downloaded from here. You can find Vista themes here. When you have downloaded the Desired theme, Unzip it and copy it to C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes.
Get a nice Vista wallpaper over here or you can also search for them in google.
Now download the vista sounds and Unzip/Copy the to C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA folder. Goto Windows Control panel >> Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices >> Sounds and change the sound for respective events.
For the Vista like “Taskbar Screenshot Utility” (I can’t find any other good word for it) download Vista Task Tips and install it. After you have installed it, You can resize the screen shot of open windows by scrolling the mouse wheel up or down.. Now when you hover a open window in Taskbar, it shows you a screenshot of it.
For the Aero Effect I use this. And for 3D flip I use Winplosion.
For Sidebar I use Google sidebar bundled with Google desktop. There are many others and better sidebars for XP than Google sidebar but I like Google’s because it adds functionality to your desktop, and because I use many other services of Google which are integrated with Google Desktop. Other can be downloaded here, here and here.
For the start menu I used VistaStart and downloaded some Vista Screensavers from here. I downloaded the Vista cursors and Vista icons.
To make my OS look more like Vista I used the Vista theme for my aVast antivirus software and which can be downloaded here. I also downloaded the Vista theme for Firefox. I changed the color scheme of Office 2007 to black which gives it a Vistaish feel. I also downloaded the Vista Explorer to make my PC more like Vista.
If you know some any other tweaks, let them come in comments.
?
This is Cool…
nice
i want to make the vista theme just like yours but it cant work..please do something A.S.A.P
it says windows can open this program..
ewrw
Did you apply the uxtheme.dll patcher.
haha… I’m running Vista Ultimate, as soon as i got it i spent an hour getting it into classic mode and turning off anything transparent i could..
How about DirectX 10?
um, why does the blog page automatically bring me here to the comment page?
I just want to read the article!!!
kfykitio
If you have access to Demonoid, my name is RedAugust. I have the Vista fonts and if you inteall them and change your default display font to Segoe UI instead of whatever XP uses it will add to the believability and overall mirage.
If you can’t get to Demonoid you can always download the trial version of MS Office 2007 and copy each font file from Control Panel > Fonts or C\Windows\Fonts before uninstalling it.
Uh yeah…makes a ton of sense. Your reasoning is that XP is faster, so what do you do? Install a *ton* of CRAP, simply to make it look like Vista. Which, in the end, will make it slow enough that you might as well have just run Vista to begin with.
At least then, you’d get the graphics processing offloaded to the GPU.
How stupid.
ergdfvbd
1
“I’m running Vista Ultimate – as soon as i got it i spent an hour getting it into classic mode and turning off anything transparent i could…”
Count me in – now i have XP-looking Vista Ultimate as easy to use and with DX-10 and Office 2k7 – a lil’ faster than XP tested with 3DMark 2003 to 2006 (Including PC-Tests)!
So that’s the direction: Keep good parts of nowadays and do Not slow down your PC with 100′s of gadgeds, sidebars, taskbar apps and other mem and speed lessening grab!
Linux is also great
)
I have enough junk on my computer that some days I wish to just go back to Windows 3.1 Workgroup. Why add more to make it look like something I don’t like and would never buy or use?
I clicked on the patcher link and there was an error, please help
Sorry, the patcher link was broken, fixed now.
The link for VistaStart is broken…
http://www.jcxp.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=13249&pid=136397&st=0%EF%BF%BDentry136397
bricopack vista inspirat-2-1-0 can do all that in one install you can down load it at crystalxp.net it is free and thy have a lot of other stuff to all kinds of bricopacks to change the look of xp try it you will like it
hey
its cool
does anyone here realize that compiz-fusion totally kicks vista’s ass? you may have 3d flip, but i have a physics-enabled dock, widgets on a seperate layer, four desktops on a three demensional cube, wiggly windows, and trasnperency. this is all free. it is also running nice and fast on a 3 year old laptop with a 1.5ghz cpu and 512 megs ram. so, in closing, nyah nyah.
/me agrees with buckykat
This is a great “middle of the road” solution.
I get all of the programs/games that work in XP – the “cool” features of Vista w/o all the bloat.
Oh… and although LINUX is sweet with compiz/fusion/beryl there is one small problem. – Gaming sucks. No Photochop CS2, and the sound support is horrible.
And the biggest bloat I have runnin? Firefox and Explorer… go figure.
what’s the point?
Awesome. I have a couple of friends who would really like this. Personally, I’m all about the windows classic theme, but my less geeky friends enjoy the colours and effects.
proka: The whole point of upgrading to windows vista is for the special effects. If you can get those without going through the pain of actually installing and using vista, that’s great! I’ve installed vista on several PCs and there are huge compatibility issues. With XP there are none, so these tweaks give you the best of both worlds (should you want pretty UI’s).
Nice post but strange, Nero installed really easy and works well. I have had it running for months now.
Sound card – betya it’s creative – they are super slack with drivers , almost as bad as Apple or Logitech.
I have tried this on an OLD desktop, secondhand, no idea how old it really is, but it worked! I cleaned it up first, tried to get it going as best I could, stuck on all of the Vista effects, and it didn’t complain at all!
The Winplosion effects were jumpy so I removed them, but otherwise fine!
Although I still stand by my philosophy that you should NOT go out and buy Vista, unless you get a new PC, or you have a computer that you WANT to stick with for many more years…
Just got a brand new PC and Vista’s great! Very pretty (but that’s it) other than the looks, Vista has no significant advantages to the average user. For this reason, people such as “Tippakoo” who brag that they spent ages turning Vista into the classic style as soon as they got it have just wasted up to £400!
jjkll
A bit much innit? Download NeoTheme instead of dicking around with Uxtheme.dll. Otherwise, why don’t you just GET Vista?
Why don’t you just GET Vista?
‘Cos Vista is over-rated shite dude, that’s why.
the how to site takes me here. please fix it
its okay but it takes a lot of downloading. An easier way is just to download the “vista transformation pack 7″. It does all that downloading for you you simply download and install and you computer is VISTA!! You find it at download.com just type that in on the search bar. If that doesn’t work then google it.
;P
Cool looking … but I thought Vista managed memory much much better than XP …. making Vista faster !!!
Yes, but if you have a computer with only 512Mb, XP will run faster, because vista uses more resources.
(or so I heard)
or u could just download the Anthracite theme pack which does all that 4 u
saplay?m vistaya en büyük XP
I f…ck vista. my best system XP
vista is only a visual improvement over XP, nothing else. XP FTW! yeah.
http://www.34tr.com bakin takilin bakalim. eski istanbul resimleri.
this is awesome. im downloading this stuff
Would Halo 2 (which only works on Vista) work with the patch also?
this is the most amazing website i have ever seen in my entire life. i couldnt believe what i was seeing, i an truly astonished. if only more people could see this website i think it would make the world such a happier place. im going to make it my duty to tell everyone i know about this amazing website. peace to all my fellow geeks!!
my best system is linux, but… this looks nice, I’ll try it
wtf everything on here you have to buy and it takes up so much space and what if i don’t like it when i get it? cool ideas though.
yo wth.. your thing says to download the patch, then restart computer, i restarted then now its locking me out of my own computer. what i do now?
@ryan But it works fine with the rest. You should check you system for Viruses or……are you SP2 installed
[...] Make Windows XP look like Windows Vista for free [...]
i got windows xp service pack 3. would that count as a beta service pack?
the VistaStart link is broken, plz fix it
@Petter Thanks for pointing out. It is fixed now.
I wish Miccrosoft would just fix Vista, cause it is cool. They should know because a LOT of people are DOWNGRADING to XP. But anyways, that looks so real. I’m not willing to pay this though. Get bricopack vista inspirat-2-1-0…it is WAY easier than doing this, and it is FREE. The only downside is the start menu, which isn’t the same…but the link here isn’t working. I also wish it had the transparent look, and the 3D aero flippy thing. (wow…I couldn’t have called it something more sad…but you know what I mean.) That costs money too, htough. Get the bricopack vista inspirat-2-1-0…it is easy, and awsome. (just download the Google sidebar) O, and the Rocketpack sidebar that comes with the pack is AWSOME. You could even make it look like a MAC kinda. So many possibilities…
Hi Hi
For the 3d aero crap i had to use win-flip. it worked great. i love xp but enjoy the visuals of vista
[...] other operating system with these transformation packs. I have have here at Geekywood shown you how to Convert XP into Vista and also to Mac OSX. But we have only used different kind of software for individual purpose. Like, [...]
I can’t seem to make it like that i tried but it won’t work how do u make the icons like the Exit Button and the Minimize Button and the Bigger window icon i can’t seem to put it right like yours please help me
-allan
how do u make it like that theme well i figure out to put the Start but how do u get the skin
please
A.S.A.P
i tried to download patch Uxtheme and it written: please eject your windows nt (i dont have cd in the computer) or move that folder somewhere else.but i dont know wath is windows nt and where it is please help me as fast as possible!!!!!! help me
that patcher isn’t working on mine, i click on it and it does all the crap, then it restarts my computer. after that i try to put that theme file in the themes folder and it works but when i click on the theme it is windows classic insted of the vista theme. What do i do???
i patched Uxtheme.dll but when i want to change the theme on the windows XP into vista theme, the folders look like they are from the windows ME or 98. What should i do? plz answer quickly
i have the same problem as Savik, the patcher does its thing but when it restarts and i choose the vista theme in the properties window on the desktop it shows windows clasic theme?i could realy use some extra info on this, it is realy anoying. plzzzzzzz help
nice but not that good email me if you can tell me where i can find a download for the vista start search bar thingy ….my email is arthurz619@yahoo.com