Top 3 themes for Windows XP

I believe having a pleasant looking UI inspires you on your work, and by that helps you being more productive. For that, it’s a shame that Microsoft has decided to not let people skin the user interface of Windows XP desktop freely. Luckily, there’s a simple hack that enables this.

1. Download UXTheme Multi-Patcher (Neowin Edition) 4.0.
2. Unzip, run .exe, click on the ‘Patch’ button.
3. Click ‘Ok’ on the warning, click ‘Cancel’ when it asks you to insert Windows CD, and click ‘Yes’ to keep these unrecognized file versions.
4. Click ‘Ok’ when it says you to restart your computer.

You’re done. Now you can install new themes, they are usually distributed as a .zip-file. Just unzip them into the \Resources\Themes inside your Windows directory, and they become available at the ‘Appearance’ tab on Display Properties window.

Now let me show you the ones I like most. These themes are highly polished, and are very high quality, therefore any of them is highly recommended for your everyday need of eye candy.

1. Reluna. Name probably indicates a remake of the standard XP theme ‘Luna’ (or not), it is very well done and pleasant looking theme with 3 distinct variations (not just colors but overall look as well).
2. New Tiger Milk. Obvious Apple love here, theme inspired by Mac OS X Tiger. Look, it’s perfectly ok to have Macintosh theme on your Windows, as long as you don’t tell your friends. It’s that cool!
3. XPMC RC3. “A professional theme made for developers and XP users who are at their PC for long periods.” That’s quite accurately put. There’s certainly that kind of order that coherent, logical minds love. My favorite theme for programming desktop.

You probably want to also turn on ClearType font smoothing technique while you’re at it, click ‘Properties’ on Desktop, go to ‘Appearance’ -> ‘Effects’, and select ‘ClearType’ on the second drop down list. Makes reading text highly more pleasant IMHO.

And while you’re at it, grab a cool new wallpaper from Wallpaperstock. My favorite place to look for wallpapers, for example check out this with mountains and snow, or this grassy green wallpaper.