The Gang of Five
Beyond the Mysterious Beyond => Hobbies and Recreation => Computer and Electronics => Topic started by: landbeforetimelover on March 25, 2008, 06:18:49 PM
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Okay, let's face it. Windows vista is a nightmare of incompatibility problems and slowdowns. You need a brand new $2,000 computer to run it decently and all it's really got no new features. What does it have going for it? It's really pretty! :yes It has cool transitions and a cool aero theme and of course it's got the vista sidebar. Well, why in the world would you have vista and all it's problems just to have it look pretty? Well, you wouldn't. Instead, you can make windows xp look exactly like windows vista and have an operating system that's compatible with everything you need it to be compatible with! B) Sound too good to be true? Well, this is my computer running windows XP professional service pack 2:
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa146/t...svistastyle.jpg (http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa146/tlordame/windowsvistastyle.jpg)
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa146/t...e/startmenu.jpg (http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa146/tlordame/startmenu.jpg)
It looks almost exactly like windows vista without all the crap that goes along with it! :yes What do you need to get your windows xp machine to look like vista? Well, the sidebar is freeware provided by......well.....I can't remember, but here's a link to it:
http://www.deviantart.com/download/45833609/ (http://www.deviantart.com/download/45833609/)
The vista theme (meaning the start menu and the overall look and feel of vista) is available via an AIO file. Now, I downloaded this AIO from a torrent. It had a few viruses in it which I removed and it also had a cracked version of windows blinds you need to apply the theme. I have corrupted the crack so it won't work. If you PM me, I'll give you the AIO, but since I removed the crack you must actually BUY windows blinds to use the theme. I don't support software piracy so don't ask me to give you the cracked version. I bought my version of windows blinds and I expect everyone else to do the same. If you don't want to pay for windows blinds, there are alternatives such as creating separate msstyles files and applying them directly using tools that come with windows but that requires a lot of work and I doubt many here have enough skill to do such a thing.
Overall, I am very impressed with the vista sidebar and theme. I will be removing them from my laptop since they drained the battery about 10% faster than without the them but I'm keeping it for all my desktop computers.
In conclusion, the sidebar is free. The theme is too....if you're up to a bit of work in the command prompt and installing a small patch. I just love the sidebar and I love having a slideshow with pictures on my desktop at all times. The built in media player is very nice too. Here's a picture of it:
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa146/t...mediaplayer.jpg (http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa146/tlordame/mediaplayer.jpg)
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Pardon my not knowing, but what is windows blinds? Something so you can alter the look of windows more then a theme sort of thing would do?
I wonder how much service pack 1 will help vista. I heard you can download it now, but it won't show up till April in the upgrade widows thing so for now you have to download it manually. I forgot the size of the service pack. I think it was in the hundreds of meg, maybe 300 or 500, don't recall though.
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I already have service pack 1 for vista ultimate. I noticed nothing. I'm sure it's nothing but anti-piracy measures.
Windows blinds is better than just a theme file because Microbutt doesn't want anyone to have any theme besides their own. There is no way to apply a simple msstyles file without a patch or proram. I prefer the program. The patch has crashed 2 computers of mine out of the hundreds I've applied themes on.
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That¥s awesome LBTlover. I downloaded it and it¥s so cool :)
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Ick...sidebars.....
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I would typically agree with you Petrie, however when you have a very large monitor and an display a large resolution, it's actually very cool. I wouldn't display a sidebar on a resolution smaller than 1280X1024 though no matter what features it has with it.
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I'm trying google sidebar for a bit....disabled everything except the scratch pad and weather reports, and clock. That's about all I'd ever use. Hopefully the damn thing isn't calling home too often.
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The sidebar is an awesome application, but a simple one. There's only one time it "calls home" and that's when you click "update". All it does though is bring up the home page of the application. I really don't think it does anything but display certain images and get rss feeds, but you can always turn that stuff off.