So you don’t want to switch to Vista but want a Vista look for your desktop? Fret not. I was doing some housekeeping on my personal desktop yesterday when I had this idea too. And now my desktop has a fresh new Vista look, thanks to some freeware utilities and themes. It’s pretty easy, just follow these 5 simple steps.

Step 1

Download an unlocked uxtheme.dll and replace the original uxtheme.dll in C:\Windows\system32 using the Replacer tool. The unlocked uxtheme.dll will allow you to use non default visual styles.

Step 2

Download the Royale Vista VS theme and extract it. The downloaded theme package contains multiple versions of the same theme. Just copy the RVista folder in the RoyaleVista_1.5.4 folder into C:\Windows\Resources\Themes and double click the RVista Windows Visual Style file to apply it.

Step 3

Install Yahoo! Widgets to have your very own Vista Sidebar. I recommend the systemDashboard series of widgets.

Step 4

Install IconTweaker to change the default Windows icons.

Step 5

Download the Vista Icontweaker theme and use IconTweaker to apply the theme.

There you go. Enjoy your new Vista look. Here’s mine for your reference.