How to: Make Windows XP/Vista look more appealing!

[Active Member]

Active Member's guide to make your Windows XP/Vista look better!

In this guide, I will show you how to make your windows desktop look amazing, and run awesome widgets!





After you are done, it could look like this!

Okay, so you are totally bored of your ugly windows XP or vista.

Time to spice it up in a few easy steps!


Step 1: Removing clutter.

Remove all unused shortcuts and icons. Right click the desktop and go to "Arrange desktop icons by" and uncheck “Show desktop icons”. You should now have a completely clean desktop.



Step 2: Install ObjectDock.

Link:
http://linkbutcher.com/85


Step 3: Hide your taskbar.

Once you have setup ObjectDock, click "Configure Dock", and under the "General" tab, check the box that says "Hide Windows Toolbar."

Step 4: Install Widgets.

Go to http://widgets.yahoo.com/download/
Download the software. Remove any widgets you do not want to use. Go to http://widgets.yahoo.com/ to find new widgets, just go through the pages and find any widgets that interest you and download them.

Step 5: Finding a High Definition wallpaper.

To get a clean looking wallpaper, go to http://www.hdwallpapers.net/ and find a wallpaper that is appealing to you. Right click it, and set it as your desktop backround.

Step 6: Add your most-used programs to ObjectDock.

Re-enable your desktop icons for a moment, and drag all your favorite programs onto the ObjectDock toolbar. Now hide your icons again.


Step 7: Keep customizing.

Play around with your ObjectDock and widgets, finding a balance that is right for you.

Your finished!


Depending on how you customized everything, your desktop could look like mine!

Thank you for taking the time to read through my guide, I hope you all enjoy it. If you think that it needs improvement or something needs to be added, let me know and I will add it!
​

 

[Fatih]

Alright so let me begin.

The guide was cool and helpful because I did most of these things when I had vista. Simple but effective.

Here are some things you may want to work on:

Try detailing some of your steps, for example let's take a look at the step were you say "install widgets." Maybe you can tell people a bit more about widgets and link them to some very useful widgets that they may want.

Under keep customizing you can tell people what they can do with their desktop such as new themes and so on. You can link them to different programs like stylexp or alienguise.

For the wallpapers part you may wanna give people some links to some very nice wallpapers that they can use as an example and so on.

I hope you get my point when I say "make it more detailed."

Overall it's a good guide that can help many people but there are a few things which you can add to it to give it that finishing and sparkling touch.

 

[Active Member]

Thanks for the criticism. I will improve the guide in a little bit.