Customizing Windows XP desktop?

[Link Antilles]

I am hoping to spruce up my desktop a bit, and I came across certain sites like http://www.wincustomize.com and http://www.themexp.org. There is some really cool stuff there, but it seems that there is various software required to allow you to use these themes and skins.

I was wondering if people around here use these sorts of things, and what might be recommended.

Thanks.

[Chichiri]

Yes, I use themexp a lot. The program I use for the programs is called Style Xp (http://www.tgtsoft.com/). It works nice.

as far as themexp.org, i'd say watch what you download from there. if you are downloading an exe file, they often wrap spyware/advertisements into the file because the spyware will give them money (it's like a form of advertisement revenue). I see these kind of things MOSTLY in the log on screens that are in exe format. Most visual styles and themes are okay.

I'd go for it, if you are interested in changing up your look. I, personally, love it.

[agasfas]

Wow, looks like an interesting program...
Perhaps I should look into this, though I'm not sure if it installs 3rd party software (spy/ad-ware). Most of the time they do. Guess the only way to find out is to read the "user agreement." I mean, I've downloaded screensavers and never installed them because the install 3rd party software. I'm just assuming this does the same. So I'll do some looking into it tomorrow. Though if it doesn't install 3rd party softwares or ad/spyware then it may be a neat thing to get. Though, looks to good to be true

[glitch1501]

i use themexp, its completely spyware free

[blkmage]

If you're looking to really change your interface, you could get a shell replacement, like Litestep. I myself used Blackbox for Windows. If you're just looking to skin your Windows, then you can either get Stardock's Windowblinds, or you can use Windows XP's skinning engine by getting StyleXP or getting a modified dll file somewhere.

[Chichiri]

i use themexp, its completely spyware free

themexp.org is not ad free. Like i said, there are many things on the site that when you download it, it will also install 3rd party software. Visual styles (aka the way your taskbars,toolbars, and everything looks) *USUALLY* has nothing wrapped into it. But i notice a LOT of the log on screens do and I wouldn't be suprised if they start wrapping some of the visual styles and themes with stuff too.

style xp does indeed have no spyware.

[Link Antilles]

Hmm…. I still haven't downloaded anything, but I'm looking at... Windowblinds, Style XP, and themexp (don't worry I scratched out themexp.org.). I'll probably end up downloading all of them.... and just play with them one at a time. - then I'll probably reformat and stick to the one I like.

Anyways, I'm very good at inadvertently finding bugs and/or at crashing computers, how stable are these programs? How bad of resource hogs are they?

Thanks again, folks.

[Chichiri]

style xp isn't too bad. you can always close it and don't run it at all. then when you reboot, the style set may go back to normal. if that happens, just boot it up again, apply the settings, then turn it back off. though it doesn't take up too much.

if you're really worried about spy-progs, just download style xp MAN edition on the download part of tgtsoft.com aka stylexp. they include a lot of themes that are good looking and don't really require anything extra.

as for stability, i've never had problems with them. someone else i gave the program to had problems, but that kid was an insecure nut job with his pc. he was way overly secure about really stupid little things. I don't think it'll be a problem.

[blkmage]

What StyleXP does is change Windows XP's skinning engine so it's possible to use unsigned visual styles. Basically, you could do the same thing by finding a patched uxtheme.dll file and replace it with the one you have in order to achieve the same thing so you don't need StyleXP installed or running.