How To Make XP Look Like VISTA

Vista looks pretty cool eh, you might have even considered buying it until you saw the price tag, or maybe you just didn't want to get it because all of the bugs, but either way theres no need to fear because free vista is here! This is not actually windows vista but its pretty close. It's a theming pack called Vista Transformation Pack 7. It basically gives your old XP or 2000 a digital makeover, and we're going to find out how to use it.

Step 1: Download Your Files

To make this look like vista we're going to need 2 programs:

1. Vista Tansformation Pack 7
2. Fast Aero

What is Vista Transformation Pack 7?
Vista transformation pack 7 is a theming program that themes your os to vista by changing things like your boot screen your taskbar your wallpaper your screen savers ect.

What is Fast Aero?
Ya know the nice transparent windows that vista has? This program allows you to have them without dishing out 20 bucks for windowblinds.

Lets Continue

Comments

[fudgyone]

just to let anyone know, the fast aero download link is infected with a trojan virus. i found like 5 of them on the link. try something else if it works or risk your computer and your safety!

[TATcreator]

I believe that this would be a better link than fastaero. Copy and paste this download link into browser bar:
http://cfs3.tistory.com/upload_control/download.blog?fhandle=YmxvZzEwMzQ4NEBmczMudGlzdG9yeS5jb206L2F0dGFjaC8wLzA5MDAwMDAwMDAwMi5leGU=&filename=Setup_ShockAero3D.exe

[jrod92]

i downloaded SP3 and it killed this, vistart and viorb still work, but nothing else does. i just got finished reformatting my computer and reinstalling all the drivers so i'm kinda tired of this kind of stuff for now so is there a simple way to just make this all go away? will uninstalling the transformation pack remove every part of it, or will there still be residual effects?

[A good name]

Being a vista user, I can safely say that you would never EVER want it. Was lied to and told it was good for gaming (A while ago, never really considered how much RAM it took up... that and I was on a laptop) and what a surprised - Staples work on commission, so I'm stuck with a crappy operating system trying to get out.

[Sandisk1duo]

transformation pack cannot be downloaded :(

[livesteamfan]

Fast Aero really slows down the system.

[4_t477_guy]

I recommend TrueTransparency instead of Fast Aero. Besides, Vista Transformation Pack 8.01 includes TrueTransparency.

[4_t477_guy]

You can find Fast Aero here.

[livesteamfan]

I have found out that this will also work on Windows 95 and 98, depending on your system.

[steve_nguyen95]

i have successfully done this but when i boot up my comp it still sez qindows xp. after that it shows the vista symbol and starts up w/ vista ultimate. any help?

[AnarchistAsian]

can you reverse it, and easily change it whenever you want, because this is the only laptop i will have for a long time(and it's very nice), so i don't want to permanently mark it or something.

P.S. today is my birthday, view my awsome instructable here

[AnarchistAsian]

today seriously is my birthday by the way

[REA]

this theme is vary safe. i tested it on a vary laggy computer (less than 1gb of ram and 512mb hard drive space [less counting the things i have saved[) and it didnt have any significant changes as far as its speed.

[ryan289]

where the hell is start up?

[REA]

go to start>search>then type "startup" past the file in the folder thats in "c:\documents and settings\all users\start menu\programs" if you need any more help just PM me.

[livesteamfan]

About what Bleachworthy said about when XP first came out and people stuck with their old systems. When you said, "(and God forbid)98 SE," I, at the time, was sill running Windows 95. And actually I still am using 95. I've had it for 10+ yeas but I bought my first XP yesterday, though I'm still going to keep it because it's a really good OS.

[REA]

my computer didnt have Hotfix KB925902. is that bad?

[knex-4-life]

this doesnt work for me whenever i open the transform pack it says it encountered a problem and must shut down :(

[REA]

do you have winrar?

[awkrin]

well if win xp doesn't work properly on my pc(although 1gb ram, 3ghz, agp video card) is it worth doing this thing?

[bikerguy7]

w00t! they released vista transform pack 8, nice instructable

[JL2013]

OK, so I installed it, and I changed back to my XP look, but everytime I move my cursor in a circle, my screen splits into layers. How do I get rid of that?

[ll.13]

Perhaps a better title for the Instructable is: Upgrade XP GUI to look like Vista. Vista looks cool, maybe, I don't like the performance though.

[bleachworthy]

well, think about this; XP has a maximum installation size of about six and a half gigabytes. less system files, means faster fetch time. the faster the system can retrieve the files, the faster the OS. vista has a minimum installation size of fifteen gigabytes, well over twice the size of XP. this means that there are more files for the system to retrieve, slowly but surly hogging all the resources it can get it's hands on. give vista 2-3 years, and it will be a good OS. this is just like when XP first came out. everyone wanted to stick to their 2k, ME, NT, (and god forbid) 98 SE. xp has grown to be the OS we all know, (and hopefully) love, because we gave it time to improve. and it did. sure, it took hundreds of megabytes of updates, and service packs that eventually replaced almost every file in XP itself. but it was worth it, wasn't it?

[Dark Flight14]

In security, no, stability and performance, slightly, i think most of the things were user created add-on and other things, like Firefox for example. That increased security because it's not integrated into the OS.

[ll.13]

Good point, but also when XP came out (2001?) that was the day of MegaHertz, now we run XP on 1.7Ghz and it runs well, even on 700Mhz it's not too bad, when computing technology is more advanced and Quad-Core CPU's are normal, Vista will be much better. Plus there is always Linux, with with a large choice of GUI's

[Yerboogieman]

i run an XP computer with crap for processor then took the gig of ram out and put it in my good computer and use that crap one for my alarm with Jet Audio

[LasVegas]

WinXP - October 2001 SP1 - September 2002 SP1a - February 2003 SP2 - August 2004 If you want a really zippy OS! Try installing Win95 on a modern machine!

[Yerboogieman]

but i got my emachine with SP2 in August 2003

[Punkguyta]

No no LasVegas, you have it allllll wrong, try installing Windows 3.11 on a modern machine. I had it on a Pentium 1 120mhz once, that was so fast that it corrupted itself and every time I wanted to turn it off, I had to reinstall it every time, which being a fast computer (compared to what Win 3.11 was made on) installs pretty fast so I put up with it for sake of saying I had it. If win 3.11 were "placed" apon a modern machine, it would most likely destroy it's system files. -P

[LasVegas]

The fact that your Win 3.11 install corrupted itself had nothing to do with the speed of the computer. It was more likely due to the use of a similar, but incompatible file system (Fat32 instead of Fat16).

[Punkguyta]

When you install it, it wipes and formats the drive, to fat 16, so if it were due to an incompatibility (which I'm pretty sure win 3.11 did run on fat 32? Might be wrong here) IT wouldn't have booted to the desktop in the first place, which I must say win 3.11 is rather cute compared to today's desktops.

[LasVegas]

Much of your current hardware no longer is BIOS and IRQ based. Some of it also operates outside of the original 64K base addresses. Win 3.11 was never designed to run with more than 64K, let alone drive hardware outside of that space. I even remember a quote from Gates about then that computers would never need more than 64K... I'm sure Win 3.11 would quickly run out of stack space trying to run on modern hardware.

[legless]

He said 640KB not 64KB. They allowed 1MB of addressing space in total including the upper memory where drivers and such were located. SO you had up to 640KB of base memory which was loaded and dealt with in 64KB chunks.

[old_bass_masta]

Heh. how does SP3 work with this thing?

[ac1D]

Some smart guy in the scene made a vista image of 710mb, = one cd. almost same as xp!

[bleachworthy]

you got a link? plus in doing that, it takes away alot of the functionality of vista. hell, if i really wanted to I could make XP less than a hundred megabytes, but needless to say, it would be less than spectacular.

[ac1D]

only removing game and useless services of xp make it around 500mb, and there is some 128mb version for live usb key. about vista, they removed game, services, replaced IE by firefox, removed aero(:() , and lot of thing. i cant link u here, but if u have a mail, i would be able to

[iKill]

i know this was a while ago but could you pm me the link?>

[macca4life]

mike you wont need it m8