Good Vista themes


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I have been wanting to upgrade to Vista 64bit (well actually it's available in dualboot, but I always boot into XP) And that is because I can't find a nice looking visual style for Vista...

Where on earth are the good Vista themes? The ones on deviantart or even in the "completed vista styles" subforum are - to put it mildly - not as nice as some of the top themes for XP.

Where is Watercolor or HmmXP or gfxOasis or Storm or ... for Vista?

Or is it because there is no good theming tool that is compatible with Vista themes? Then again, there never was one for XP either ...

Or is it because all the good themers back in the days of XP went off and turned their back to the theming scene? I'm beginning to think so, gfsOasis is closed, Dumbassjones is nowhere to be found and here at Neowin I haven't seen any of the big names posting in a while

Help! :(

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I have been wanting to upgrade to Vista 64bit (well actually it's available in dualboot, but I always boot into XP) And that is because I can't find a nice looking visual style for Vista...

Where on earth are the good Vista themes? The ones on deviantart or even in the "completed vista styles" subforum are - to put it mildly - not as nice as some of the top themes for XP.

Where is Watercolor or HmmXP or gfxOasis or Storm or ... for Vista?

Or is it because there is no good theming tool that is compatible with Vista themes? Then again, there never was one for XP either ...

Or is it because all the good themers back in the days of XP went off and turned their back to the theming scene? I'm beginning to think so, gfsOasis is closed, Dumbassjones is nowhere to be found and here at Neowin I haven't seen any of the big names posting in a while

Help! :(

+1

All the vista themes i know looks like the original aero theme, just lighter or darker, but all looks the same... not a real change as in XP.

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I don't believe Vista is theming friendly outside of Windowblinds, but even then I think skinning on the whole has died compared to what we saw with XP years ago. Those were the good ole days.

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Indeed, I have seen enough "variations on aero" that one person can handle. Granted, HmmXP or Watercolor were also variations on the classic windows theme (with a touch of Luna) but those themes were awesome! I can't find a theme like that for Vista.

I am no themer, I have never created a visual style for XP or anything else (although I have modded gfxOasis for personal use) and I know it is difficult. But to be honest ... 90% of the themes for Vista currently available I can make myself!

Sigh. :(

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Main problem I find is most themes generally aren't usable for more than 30 minutes a time, there's not one, other than the default Vista theme that I'm happy to use :(

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Definitely with you on that one. All the themes I tried using for Vista were rubbish compared to the best that XP themes had to offer, and they often placed emphasis over eyecandy rather than functionality/usability.

Right now I am using Aero with the squared off window corners (as opposed to the rounded) . I think it looks sharper and it matches well with the frame of my monitor.

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In the XP skinning days, they were blessed with StyleBuilder. It's still possible to use a resource editor to do everything by hand, but StyleBuilder was like SkinStudio, but for VSes only.

For Vista, there's no such tool yet. This one's still in development or in limbo. But when it does get released, what's to say it'll last long enough to carry onto Windows 7, assuming the format will not drastically change?

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my latest ZEUSosX works (and my last ones for windows Vista, as i stoped), will be realeased after Ave realease his amazing VSB program for more treatment.

Down_to_Earth_by_ZEUSosX.jpg

39eece8c8e3574869a138fb5dea42d31.jpg

9ab980cf855c42ff18a922606eaf6809.jpg

bab59d8f6bd4e82fb88d685835e4b10c.jpg

17a5d52fb1b7e8e98141270045fe5eeb.jpg

a88524c5625ef5ba6fe1c0b72909c9bf.jpg

The_Rising_of_Mac__s____spirit_by_ZEUSosX.jpg

What is on those previews is not the final versions of th visual styles. This work started on Novembr of 2006 [you can see the pre beta versions previes on deviant art and other forums], first theme realeased on November 2007, , last big one on April 2008 , last experimental on 27 May 2008 and i hope, as i have problems of health, this last one to be realeased this year(2008).

Edited by idas
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I don't think the scene is dead, but I think Vista made it somewhat more difficult for people to go from XP to Vista. Skinning Vista without 3rd party tools is pretty limited, and that is one reason you see a big percentage of skins just modded Aero types. With Windows 7 on the horizon, I'm not sure if people are putting a lot of time into Vista .msstyles, or if it will matter to them at all. :)

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VistaOSX '09 RD by =patrickgs

VistaOSX___09_RD_by_patrickgs.png

mac style transformtion pack for all versions of windows vista , 32 and 64 bit, sp0 and sp1, soon realeased.

i guarantee that the theme will give some of the best efforts on code analysis, after 2 years searching hex code, and shelstyle.dll analysis and under the limitations of windows system, thou the realeased theme vesion to this work will be under patrickg's surveillance and development, as as i have written my final form of my themes will realeased by me, a lot after , but before the end of 2008. Also this work will give an answerr for today capabilities of theming on vista.

Edited by idas
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