@Gadren: I totally agree. I like the simplicity of the SlanXP style, but I just don't care for the line through the text. It's so annoying. The gloss is fine if you don't make the fade so predominant. Smooth fades and gradients still look classy.

xious

i prefer Kemikal 3 from the author of slan xp
i must admit, that guy knows how to make both simple and glossy xp themes
the GelXP theme looks nice enough, but i don't like its start button's shape. funny enough, that damn button has always been a dealbreaker for me in choosing a theme

blackeyes1989

I use a modified Zune theme.

[customize.org]

I believe this is it.

tgrk35

The GelXP theme looks pretty nice, mainly because the gradients are smooth. I utterly despise the recent trend of having everything be so glossy that there's a line running right through the taskbar, for example. There simply should not be a horizontal line running right through text.

The theme I use is HmmXP. It's similar to XPMC, and has themes for Firefox and WinAmp.

[fugacious.deviantart.com]

Gadren

I really like the Razor 2 Final theme. ^__^ Will definitely be downloading this for my XP system. ^__^

Thanks Gina! ^__^

Asian Angel

I use the XPMC theme as above but packaged with the Tango icon pack and Tango App icon pack. 'Tis very nice.

[vertigosity.deviantart.com]

[vertigosity.deviantart.com]

MarcLister

that looks sick. totally downloading these. ;)

grewal1212

No Luna Element love? Sorry, cant get a link atm, block from deviantart at work.

Zerbe

I really like the SlanXP theme pack. 1 year using it and still enjoy the smooth black style of it. Specially the taskbar, with this theme taskbar is thinner than the original one.

Moisés

Failed even after patching ... invalid format

HPearce

I have been using Royale for a while now. It's better than it looks on the screenshot. If you like simplicity; believe me, give it a try ^^

danny8k

Im using Axis VS Black and im loving it... im still gonna try out these ones tho... Alduin looks awesome

Lord_Cathbad

I used the Induztry variant of XPMC for roughly two years. Wonderful theme.

Andrew

Most popular XP themes on deviantArt:
[www.deviantart.com]

Most popular Vista themes on deviantArt:
[www.deviantart.com]

CyberChaos

Guess I'll try out SlanXP, looks minimalistic. And I hope it is!

thr-

Here's a link to it on DeviantArt:

[vishal-gupta.deviantart.com]

tap52384

My personal favorite - Vista VG

tap52384

Those screenshots look a little odd - for SlanXP and Alduin, the two that I'm familiar with, some of the graphics on the taskbar seem to be missing. (SlanXP should have a clearly-visible reflective gradient, and Alduin should have borders above and below the taskbar.)

Nonetheless, excellent choices. I've been using SlanXP 2.0 for about a year, and it's not going anywhere. :)

Kaelri

No mention of Midnight, which doesn't even require a patch?

Wireless Joe

I've been using SlanXP for awhile now and have beening trying to find something I like a bit more but I somehow just keep defaulting to it again.

Super_Moose

folks, go to deviantart or customize.org and find your own themes, these are definitely not the cream of the crop...

garbanzo-bean

Maybe that's a little off-topic, but I've been using Vista now for about 1/2 year and in general satisfied with the default theme.
But one thing that annoys me somehow is, that MS removed the icons from the right column (Documents, Pictures,... Control Panel,...) of the start menu (compared to XP).
I find the usability of the Vista concept much worse (I'm much quicker with icons than with text) and now hardly ever use this column.
So I would really like to know if there is any way to get the respective icons into that pane.

mightymt

Ashen II. It's one of the most useable dark themes. Check it out.
[nevezen.deviantart.com]

2-7offsuit

Heh, I just switched to SlanXP last night. It has to be one of the cleanest themes I've ever seen.

godmademud

I personaly prefere NightXP which is compact and minimalistic.

Michse

I'm using Axenic for Vista 1.2:

[austin8159.deviantart.com]

I'm all for minimalistic dark themes ^_^ Transblack v1 is also another visual style I have:

[invaderjohn.deviantart.com]

I use and love both equally =]

andryou

@jwagner: Here's Blended Clearlooks Gummy on my MSI Wind

jwagner

WinGNOME XP @ deviantart hosts some great themes. I run NiteLite XP on my Media Center and Blended Clearlooks Gummy on my home and work desktops.

jwagner

I've used SlanXP and XPMC both are really go xp themes.

slmcdee

@Asian Angel: That R2F theme is really pretty isn't it? :-)

Rogue

I love Razor 2, I've been using it on my XP desktop since lifehacker posted it about a month ago.

Boba.Fett

it'd be cool if you actually did this for Vista themes now...I can't find a decent Vista theme to save my life.

xxdesmus

Not bad, but I still think Luna Element is the best XP theme out there.

Luziphir

These are very nice themes. Thanks, LH.

@Gadren: I agree about the overdone gloss these days... although I am using Microsoft's Zune theme. I might have to try the GelXP themes... the blue one looks so... gel-y... yummy!

Posco Grubb

@xxdesmus: Have you seen the Aero VG theme (Vishal Gupta @ Deviant Art)? That's what my best friend is using on her Vista system right now...

Rogue

Vista :(

Phoshi

@tap52384: That is a beautiful theme! Thanks for posting the link. :-)

Rogue

I always liked "QueVista" even though it's not the newest one.

[vyrus956.deviantart.com]

JerryA

Alduin is great, been using it for a while and I love it. Now if I could find a firefox theme similar...oh happiness all over.

rony_o

Has anybody found a minimalistic theme that is predominantly white (or black) with accents other than blue? Preferrably red OR orange OR green?

pixelwax

@MarcLister: That sounds clean. I'm gonna try that when I get home.

SamburgerHandwich

There's a wealth of great XP visual styles. I'm dissapointed by this selection. GelXP is quite ugly, and it certainly didn't warrant two slots. Anyhow, this is my list.

> Royale Inspirat
> Luna Element 5
> Shaded
> Klarheit
> TangoXP

jeejum

no offence, but these styles aren't that great.

I've been gaylording my time over the past few years every now again looking for some of those themes that are brilliantly subtle and experience-enhancing that hardly anyone has downloaded or voted for.

I'm on my way out to the pub now, but if I remember, then I'll post up some of the creme de la creme.

dps27a

I like Royale Vista 2
[dobee.deviantart.com]

SuperDOS

[heylove.deviantart.com]
This was my favorite for a long time. If you like flat themes, I recommend it.

arita

Great themes. I've used SlanXP for more than a year now. It's still my favorite, but I think I'm gonna try some new ones. The thing is... it's REALLY hard to find good slick themes. Most of themes I see are pretty shiny and fancy. These were good though. Only thing, I don't like FAT themes, I like it when it's really thin. The Alduin looked really good though.

Thanks!

Ph0Xy

my favs:

[neotool.deviantart.com]

[b0se.deviantart.com]

panopticon

@Rogue: Yes it is. ^__^

Asian Angel

@mightymt: Start Menu > right-click > Properties > Customize.

longbourne

Is there any danger in hacking the dll?

gpzbc

If you have an EeePC or an MSI Wind like me try Shiftie Pastel by lassekongo83 It's nice and compact ;)

kiwiboyus

Hate to break it to ya'll but these are some of the most boring visual styles I've seen and I've seen plenty. Save for "Razor 2 Final", these all made me yawn. If you'd really like a spectacular desktop and you aren't a PC user who's also a Mac wannabe, "NeoGeniX", "ViZion", and "OminOS" are the ways to go. All are available on DeviantArt as well, the links being below.

[dobee.deviantart.com]

[ztitus.deviantart.com]

[emmanemma.deviantart.com]

Have Fun!

haydenphb

Where can I get a real theme without cracking any VISTA file? All the themes I can find require cracking / patching some Microsoft files.

Any idea?

Thanks.

Marco

I wish Vista had some half way decent themes ...most of the themes are either WAY too transparent or just plain hideous.

xxdesmus

I also strongly recommend Aquanox by cyberchaos05. I use this one almost as much as areao4.2 by heylove. Both are amazing.

zephyrum

@gpzbc:

i did it and it killed my system. system recovery wasn't possible anymore as well... so you better be careful... dunno why it happened on my system.. BUT it happened :(

So, personally I won't crack any system files anymore lol I learned ;)

Marco

Agreed with the Zune theme for XP - a very nice black theme with a splash of color.

Counterpoint

@blackeyes1989: I know what you mean. I go by the start button along with the upper buttons (minimize/maximize/close) to pick mine.

GrandStan

@Gadren: Holy crap! I forgot about HmmXP. Thanks a million for the reminder!

GrandStan

don't these bite into system performance? I've been cool with the ugliest standard windows theme for a while, but I also hide the taskbar. Should I not care and freak out with these skins??

aidan.cage

I like how immediately above this article (in my rss program) was "how to reduce bloat in..." Doesn't this sorta ADD to bloat?

I run fluxbox on my XP machine and it is a beautiful, THIN thing.

gyffes

when i download gelxp i'm only seeing the blue, cant seem to get hold of the black. (no matter whether I click on the blue link or the black link above, and searching on deviantart also only showed one result for gelxp). What am i missing?

wellington1869

ubun human theme...it's the only thing worth looking at. everything on the right of the start nice and small (just the icons) and that start button...so small...so cute

Zepth

@pixelwax: TangoXP, you anser is TangoXP. Although what you really did was SlanXP + TangoXP > Tangerine + Advanced Appearance: fonts=Helvetica 55/65 and Selected Items=orange and something else white, grey and black. Note that the above is sluggish on startup for an old Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop (1.7P/760mb IIRC) when auto-reload is selected.

pixelwax

@garbanzo-bean: I second this!

+greenpeace+

The best ever is of course XP Royale that is the default for Media Center. (It should've been default for WINXP)

MerciClapton

@grewal1212:

Yeah! Sick, man!

ShooterMcGavin

Razor 2 Final and Royale Vista are my two favorites so far :)

Eruanno

go here for much better xp visual styles:

[customize.org]

i'm using this one:

[customize.org]

nitzua

Can't do any of that, since the XP patcher didn't work on my machine... Ugh.

saintseminole

@bobbo33: Or even better, is there a hack to allow custom themes to be installed on Office 2007?

Since I have a multi-monitor setup, my main complaint is that in Office 2007, the difference between an active window and an inactive window is only a subtle color change in the title bar - I keep accidentally typing in the wrong window.

I've googled this issue and it seems to be a common complaint. Any ideas? (And we're mandated to use MSOffice at work, so OpenOffice is not an option.)

bobbo33

I really hate how Office 2007 has it's own themes, which don't follow the rest of the operating system. Does anyone have a Windows theme that matches Office 2007?

bobbo33

Ditto for Zune. Free, light, Microsoft (yes, that can be a good thing), stable, no DLL mod required. Ideal for an EeePC. Download here: [go.microsoft.com]

maltese

On Razor2, the items on the right hand side have the first letter cut in half...anyone know a fix for this?

ヨシダさん 25

I'd say the zune theme looks better than any of those... plus you don't even have to bother hacking your OS.

(i was running with a hacked Black Royale theme, but after the SP3 update it didn't work. I guess i could have re-hacked it.. but i liked the zune one better anyway.)

(not that i have a zune...)

soul_grind

This is a screenshot of my desktop. Can't do much with a 17"; you only have so much space. :P
[img117.imageshack.us]

The visual styles created by this user are some of my all-time favourites. I'm a sucker for minimalism. I also use his Foobar2000 themes. Check him out.
[lassekongo83.deviantart.com]

ganaeshd

Is it just me, or does XPMC have no .Theme file? If it doesn't, how can I install and use it?

greenwavepi

I've been using area04 by heylove for a while now, haven't found much better.

[heylove.deviantart.com]

thespot84

@Asian Angel: I've been using Razor2 since I first read this article and I agree, it is beautiful but the explorer background images are a bit annoying. Does anyone know a way of removing them?

Kid-A

I have fallen in love with [my slightly modded version of] Pristine OS [mohsinnaqi.deviantart.com] ;)

lolwut?

SlanXP is excellent - especially for us freaks that like to save pixels on window borders. nice and minimal

Mofoo