How to Change Windows XP to Windows Vista Without a Customization Pack

Windows Vista has a much better looking user interface than Windows XP. There are ways to make your Windows XP look like Windows Vista. One of the easiest ways is to download and install a customization pack that changes everything from icons to fonts to the wallpaper but there is also one more method to change each component separately. You can change what part of the user interface you want to change and leave the rest as it is. Let us look at how you can change some very often used components to make your Windows XP look like a Windows Vista machine.

Windows Theme

Download the theme that contains the font, wallpaper, icons etc from the following link: Windows Vista Theme Link

Your folder will now contain four folders with four different components, namely:

• Bottom Common Tasks
• Fonts
• Styler Toolbar
• Theme

1. Use WinRAR to UnRAR the folder
2. Copy all the contents of this folder to “Your_Windows_Directory\Resources\Themes\”
3. Apply the theme using Desktop properties. Note: Your_Windows_Directory is the directory in which your Windows XP is installed.

Icon Pack

Download the Icon pack and install it to change the look of your icons from the following link: Windows Vista Icon Pack

1. Extract the folder to your desktop
2. Double click on the VistaVG.iconpackage file. Note: You need an icon package manager to install this

Boot Screen

You can install the Windows Vista boot screen from the following link: Download VistaVG Boot Screen

1. Double click on the download file and install it
2. Restart your computer

Apart from the above mentioned changes you can also download custom fonts and Vista fonts, install them and use it as your default font. You have to remember that customizing your Windows XP user interface might take up more resources than the default user interface; you might also have to upgrade your hardware in some cases to be able to work on your computer smoothly.