Archive for December, 2008

Windows Vista is all the rage these days & with cheap Windows Vista capable hardware available these days, you can very well make your Vista certified PC within Rs 20k. However there are many users out there who are still running old or low end hardware configuration for today’s standards & the herald of Netbooks have sparked another interest in Windows XP as Windows Vista is heavy on the GMA 950 available on most Netbooks out there. This is soon to change with nVidia Ion platform but till then, those using a Netbooks or low end configuration are either stuck with Windows XP or can install Linux.

In my office, I got a workstation running Windows XP SP3, so I decided to make the look & feel a bit more consistence, new & something black…like Vista. Now, instead of going with numerous Vista Shell Packs available, I decided to try something new & decided to go with the Tango Icon theme & something matching to it for Visual Style & Icons because Tango theme is simple on the eyes & easy to work with. They are not 3d Icons, they are all 2D Icons but still they do the work just fine & look good. I found some resources & made some of my own icons etc to make my Office’s Windows XP look like this.

This is how some applications look on my setup

When it comes to Casual Home use, Netbooks or Cyber Café or Office or even schools, users do not need much application to be installed. They just need some application as neither Netbooks are supposed to be uber powerful nor they are supposed to replace a desktop. So for place like this who are still using Windows XP, I decided to make this guide which can give their Computers running Windows XP a new & refreshing look. Keep in mind that I m making this guide strictly for the usage scenario’s I mentioned above. This isn’t some performance or tweaking guide; this is a guide to enhance the look & feel, as well as User Experience of the old & arcane operating system for today’s standards. All the applications mentioned below are free & there is no piracy. The icons are at a maximum size of 48X48 only.

Requirements.

1) A Clean unmodified installation of Windows XP. If you have any previous Shell pack or skin or theme installed, it will be removed. I am assuming that you have a newly installed Windows XP PC.

2) The following downloads…

a. Uxtheme Multipatcher & Luna Elements Black Visual Style for Windows XP

b. Tango Icon set for Windows

c. Tango Shell Patch for Windows

d. Tango uTorrent theme

e. Free download manager & tango theme

f. Abiword (In case you don’t want to use Microsoft Office or OpenOffice)

g. Tango Firefox 3 theme for Windows XP

h. XNView & Gnome theme

i. Segoe UI font

j. CCleaner

k. 7Zip & Tango 7Zip theme, also Tango WinRAR theme if you want to use WinRAR which in my point of view is useless for our use here. You just need to zip & unzip files so for that 7Zip is enough

l. Miscellaneous Tango Icons for various application

m. IcoFX. A free software to make your own icons from PNG files

n. Tango Icons which I have collected or created.

Customization

1) Start by installing Uxtheme Multipatcher & restart Windows. After this, extract the Lune Elements Black zip file & copy the “LE Black” folder to c:\windows\resources\themes. Extract the Segoe UI font & copy it to the Fonts folder. Now apply this skin by simply going to Display properties ->Appearance tab. Now click on advance & set the following fonts to Segoe UI.

a. Active/Inactive Titlebar

b. Icon

c. Menu

2) Now install the Tango Shell Patch for Windows & Install the Tango theme. There are other themes too which you can try. Let it patch the whole system & reboot windows.

For a PC like this, you don’t need many applications if it is a netbook or a cyber café or casual PC. So I will only install some simple & generic Application which are enough for a new or novice user but might help power users too.

1) For torrent client, nothing beats uTorrent for Windows. I prefer to use a portable uTorrent. To do this, just make a folder with any name, anywhere on your Hard disk. Copy uTorrent.exe to this folder, & then copy the content of the following folder to this new Folder.

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\uTorrent

After this, extract the content of the uTorrent theme given above & copy them to this new folder. Now your uTorrent is running in Portable mode with Tango theme & doesn’t need to be installed. You can simply zip it & take it with you anywhere you want.

2) Free download Manager is what it says it is. Install FDM, then extract the content of the FDM theme I gave above in the following folder

C:\Program Files\Download Manager\Skins

Now start FDM, configure it the way you want for speed, default download location etc & go to Tools -> General Settings -> Skins & select Tango from the Combo Box.

3) You can either install Abiword or Openoffice.org suite as you like or Microsoft Office.

4) Download the Tango Firefox theme mentioned above & extract it. Copy the folder to the “extension” folder of your firefox profile folder. After this select to use this theme from tools -> Add ons -> Themes

5) XNView is a free Image browser with some basic editing capability which should be sufficient for any casual user. Install XNView, then copy the XNView theme given above to the “skins” folder Inside the XNView installation folder. After this select this theme from Tools -> options -> Toolbar section -> Skins.

6) I prefer WMP11 but many might prefer something else. For a generic scenario I recommend VLC player as the new version is using Tango Icons. Install VLC Player & associate it with the file types you want. Since it is not your home PC (unless it is a netbook, in which case WMP11 is the way to go), a Library management is not required in most cases but still VLC should be able to do it just fine.

7) For CD Burning try InfraRecorder which already uses Tango Icons.

This does for the application customization for tango theme. You can search for or download many other icons all over the net for various applications as you require.