Steve’s Tech Guide

Do you want to customize Windows XP beyond belief to get it looking exactly the way you want it to? Do you want to make it look like something no one else has ever seen before? Do you want your Windows XP to look like this?

The Ultimate Windows XP Customization Guide is a complete guide that will show you from start to finish how to customize your Windows XP. It starts out with the simple things like wallpapers, screen savers, then moving onto icons and cursors, proceeding to more advanced topics like customizing your boot screen and your login screen, and finishing up with completely customizing your Windows XP theme and visual styles. This guide also gives you all the resources you’ll ever need when customizing your Windows XP as well as shows you the free and paid options for completely customizing Windows.

Steve’s Tech Guide is the home to the Ultimate Windows XP Optimization Tweak Guide, and is now the home to the Ultimate Windows XP Customization Guide.

As with anytime you mess around with your OS, you should make backups of your important files and folders just as a precaution. I have been customizing my Windows XP for a couple of years now, and have never had any problems with these tweaks as long as you follow the instructions. Good luck and happy customizing.

Sections:
1. Tricking Out Your Windows XP Wallpaper
2. Customizing Windows XP With Custom Screensavers
3. Spicing Up Your Desktop With New Icons And Cursors
4. Customizing Your Startup with Bootskins and Logon Screens
5. Completely Change Windows Look For The Better With Windows XP Themes And Visual Styles

1. Tricking Out Your Windows XP Wallpaper

Courtesy of Gino
You see your Windows XP wallpaper everyday when you power on your computer. I often get very bored of my desktop and it’s wallpaper very quickly. So why not trick it out with a video, or a webpage. Or get it to change every hour to a new one?

Automatically Rotate Windows XP Wallpapers

In the old days changing your Windows XP wallpapers was mainly done by going into your desktop properties and clicking on a new wallpaper, and changing it to that one, then repeating once every other day. But now we have a solution. Windows PowerToys Wallpaper Changer (If that link doesn’t work here’s a mirror).

The Wallpaper changer can be set to change wallpapers from 15 minutes to 1 week. You can manually skip pictures, or choose one to show up as long as you want. You can configure the folder that it gathers its wallpapers from. As well set a certain wallpaper folder to show images up for special dates like Easter and Christmas.

Use A Webpage as your Windows Wallpaper

This trick doesn’t involve any fancy software or anything new to download and install, its functionality is already built into Windows XP. You can use your wallpaper as a portal to the world wide web, load up your computer and you already have you Google Home Page sitting on your desktop.

Right click on your desktop. Click on ‘Properties’. Click the ‘Desktop’ tab. Click ‘Customize Desktop…’ button. Click on the ‘Web’ tab. Now click on ‘New’ and put a URL address, then click ok, and click ok to the active desktop message. Click ‘Ok’ then hit ‘Apply’ and voila.

You should have a small window on your desktop that resembles the web page you typed in earlier. You can resize this window, make it cover the entire desktop or a part of the desktop.

Replace Your Boring Windows XP Wallpaper With Videos Like DreamScene

If you’ve not heard of DreamScene, it’s the Windows Vista Ultimate version of using really cool videos of nature and sea creatures as wallpaper backgrounds.

It’s only available on Windows Vista Ultimate version as an extra download, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use a just as good Windows XP alternative, VLC Media Player.

VLC Media Player is popular for being able to play almost any video, and doesn’t require specific codecs. Whenever I’ve needed a video played that Winamp, Windows Media Player, and the like can’t play I’ve always come back to VLC and it’s been able to play it amazing.

Now, the key to replacing our Windows XP wallpaper with video is in right clicking on the video and selecting the ‘Wallpaper’ option. If the wallpaper option doesn’t show up go to Settings -> Preferences -> Video -> Output Modules -> Direct X, and check the ‘Advanced’ box in the bottom right corner. Then go back and try to right click on the video.

Setting up Windows XP Wallpaper for Dual-Monitors

Windows XP has decent built-in functionality for dual monitors, however the customization options are limited when it comes to setting up wallpapers via your dual monitors. You can have the same wallpaper on each monitor and that’s about it. If you have dual-monitors I highly recommend that you invest in a tool such as Ultramon, or Multi-Monitor Wallpaper Tool, which is free. I’ve dabbled around with with Multi-Monitor Wallpaper Tool and couldn’t quite figure out how to work it to my advantage, and I already had Ultramon so I just decided to stick with what worked for me. Also with Ultramon you can make it so your taskbar will extend over to the second monitor without it being stretched, and the taskbar will only show the programs that being used on that monitor, a feature I find quite handy for multitasking.

With Ultramon you just select which wallpapers you want for each monitor, click apply, and there you have it, and if you have a dual-monitor wallpaper you can use that to span across both screens, something Windows XP can’t do.


In the above examples, the line in the middle between the two wallpapers signifies my seperate monitors, I took two themed wallpapers that I happened to have on hand, and used Ultramon so I could use both of them on the seperate monitors. Oh, and I love Megadeth.

Wallpaper Resources

• Desktopography - Described as “an exhibition, a showcase of nature themed desktop wallpapers created by designers worldwide. Designers spend around 90% of their waking life in of a computer so the most appealing genre for a wallpaper would be one that has beautiful design with the all important aspect of being outdoors.” My favorite place for amazing nature wallpapers.
• deviantArt - One of my favorite places to find good, custom wallpapers about practically anything.
• ThemeXP - A good site has over 65,000 wallpapers, be careful though some links contain adware, specifically the downloads that have .exe files.
• WinCustomize - Another wallpaper site with a giant selection of wallpaper.
• Desktop Earth Wallpaper Generator - A cool wallpaper generator that takes high quality pictures of the earth and makes them into high resolution wallpapers, you can select the size and the location along with the time and date of the picture.
• Desktop Nexus - Desktop Nexus is a social wallpaper upload website. They are striving centralize all wallpapers so that way we don’t have to go google searching for crappy wallpapers, users can submit wallpapers, they are trying to revolutionize your options for finding good wallpapers.
• Rejected Windows Vista Wallpapers - These are a collection of all Windows wallpapers that didn’t make the cut in Vista. Even though they got cut they are really beautiful wallpapers.

Wallpaper Tools

• Adolix Wallpaper Changer - A free wallpaper changer that allows you to make easy playlists of wallpapers and set the time they appear as wallpapers.
• Wallpaper Cycler Lite - A wallpaper changer that is very light weight, includes a random selection algorithm to ensure that wallpapers are fully selected at random.
• Ultramon - A utility for multi-monitor systems, that is designed to increase productivity and unlock the full potential of multiple monitors.
• Multi-Monitor Wallpaper Tool - A tool for multiple monitor desktops that allows you add in and splice up to 9 images for your wallpapers to completely customize your multi-monitor Windows wallpaper experience.
• PowerToys Wallpaper Changer - The original wallpaper changer that was released as an extra PowerToy for Windows XP. It does everything you need a wallpaper changer needs to do.

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2. Customize Windows XP With Custom Screensavers

The almighty screensaver was once used to prevent burn-in on our computer monitors, unfortunately for schools that disabled screensavers many of their monitors succumbed to this dreadful burn-in, but thanks to modern technological advancements we no longer have to worry about the dreaded screen burn-in, and screensavers are another way of customizing Windows to fit our aesthetic needs and wants.

Adding Screensavers

Screensavers come as .exes, those are the ones that I usually dislike, because installing a screensaver as an .exe usually means they may have spyware, be on the safe side and make sure you scan the file first, because it is also very common for most screensavers to come as a .exe file. And they also come as .scr.

1. Go to WinCustomize and find a screensaver that you like. The file inside their zip is most likely a .scr file.
2. Unzip the .scr file into Your C:/Windows/System32 Directory.
   
3. Right click on the desktop and open up the Display Properties then select your newly installed screensaver.
   

Making Your Own Screensavers

There’s one thing I don’t like about screensavers, they’re pretty hard to make with the crappy software that’s on the web, and it’s hard to find good free software for making screensavers, I don’t know how some these people do it, but it just seems impossible to make your own screensaver that consists of more than just images.

InstantStorm is one tool I’ve found that is good for making screensavers with flash files, it’s not that hard to convert other video formats and picture formats in .SWF, so this tool is actually pretty good for making all sorts of image and video screensavers. It even lets you compile the screensaver into an easy-to-use distributable installer.

Other software choices include Active Screensaver Builder, Flash Screensaver Builder, and Screensaver Factory. Unfortunately all of these programs are only shareware, and cost at least $39 USD.

Screensaver Resources

WinCustomize - A big gallery of some really good quality screensavers and some not so good screensavers, you can sort them by popularity, age, and recent updates too.
ThemeXP - Also contains a big gallery of screensavers. This site is kind of sketchy though so I’d be wary about what I download.
Graphic Styles Screensavers

Favorite Screensavers

Free Fire Screensaver 1.2 - This is a super realistic fire screensaver. It’s pretty amazing.
Alpha Galaxy - A screensaver of the alpha galaxy.
Flurry - A port of the popular Mac OS X screensaver.
Euphoria - A really trippy screensaver that reminds me of the audio player visualizations.
Underwater - An underwater screensaver, now if only I could one that was amazingly lifelike.

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Spicing Up Your Desktop with New Icons and Cursors

The desktop icons and cursors of Windows XP are not that known for being all that customizable. But we show you how you can get the most out of them for free, and for a small price.

Icon sit on every desktop with their memorable pictures of the programs that they open. While the cursor, guided by our mouse tells us whether we should wait for the computer load, the picture is clickable, if a piece of text will open a window to another website. These two powerful features of our modern computer operating systems are extremely customizable.

Making Your Own Desktop Icons

There are many options for making your own desktop icons. You can go the freeware route and find a desktop icon maker program like, IconArt. Or you can edit your icons in MSPaint and save it as a .ico. If you have Adobe Photoshop you might have to download this plugin to enable you to save as .ico.

Changing Your Desktop Icons

1. Right click on a desktop shortcut. Go to ‘Properties’. Click on the ‘Shortcut’ tab.
2. Click the ‘Change Icon’. Now you have a list of desktop icons to choose from, or it’s probably one because the icon directory is pointed at the directory of the .exe of whatever shortcut you clicked on. So click ‘Browse’ and find your icon file in your computer. The files have to be .ico, Windows will not accept any other file format.

The only efficient way to change all of your system’s icons to something entirely new is using IconPackager. It’s a program by StarDock that allows you to change practically all of your Windows icons at once by applying ‘packages’ of icons. Microsoft themes can only change a certain amount of icons while IconPackager changes hundreds of icons.

Swapping Out Your Cursors

To change your Windows cursors you’ll need to go to your Control Panel, and click on the ‘Mouse’ icon, then click on the ‘Pointers’ tab. Now you’ll have the mouse pointers screen up there, you can change your cursors to any other scheme like 3D-White or Dinosaurs.

But these cursor schemes are boring. There’s another program that you need to make your cursors amazing, it’s called CursorFX, and it’s also made by StarDock, they really are doing good with all of this customization software. CursorFX allows you to have major special effects, you can completely change the look of cursors. Some of their features include trailing effects, cursor sizing, cursor mirroring, and even a dynamic shadow.

Desktop Icons And Cursor Tools:

IconArt
IconPackager
CursorFX

Desktop Icons Resources:

ThemeXP Icons
WinCustomize Icons
Belchfire Icons
Customize.org Icons
Graphic Styles Icons
TSS2000 Icons
DeviantArt Windows XP Icons

Cursor Resources:

ThemeXP Cursors (Be careful some may contain spyware)
WinCustomize Cursors
Belchfire Cursors
WinModify.net Cursors
Customize.org Cursors

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Customizing Your Startup with Bootskins and Logon Screens

In our quest to fully customize Windows XP we set up a video wallpaper for our background, swapped around a few icons, and even made our own screensaver, what more could we possibly do? Change the boot screen and the login screen? You’ve got it.

To clarify, the bootskin is the image that shows up when you first start your computer, the Windows loading screen. The login screen is where you click on your user name and put in your password to login to the computer.

I must warn you, though, by changing the boot skin and login screens we will be modifying sensitive Windows files. There’s a manual way for doing this and a more automatic way, along with disabling the Windows XP bootskin altogether. While testing the manual way again to make sure it works, it doesn’t seem like it does work anymore, actually. Though, I do have Windows SP3 installed, and the methods for applying custom bootskins vary from Service Pack to Service Pack.

Disabling Your Windows XP bootskin

1. Go to Start -> Run -> Type msconfig.
2. Click on the ‘BOOT.INI’ tab, and check ‘/NOGUIBOOT’.
3. Click ‘Apply’, then click ‘Close’.

Now your computer will boot up with a blank screen, instead of the Windows XP logo.

Changing Your Windows XP Bootscreen

You have a couple options for changing your Windows XP bootskin, use StyleXP, or Stardock’s BootSkin, LogonUI Boot Randomizer is recommended by the Belchfire community, because certain boot screens will only work for SP1 and SP2 and LogonUI Boot Randomizer ensures that it will convert your boot screen over and will randomize the order if you want it to.

StyleXP is a program that can do much more than just change your boot screen, it’s a full-blown Windows XP visual style changer, this means you can import, select, rotate, and manage themes, visual styles, wallpapers, logons, boot screens, icons, and explorer bar. StyleXP is $19.95, a modest price for such a useful application, and it comes with a 30-day free trial so you can try it before you buy it. I have used StyleXP before and never really had any problems, nor hear of many people having problems.

Stardock’s BootSkin is a free program that allows you to change the Windows XP boot screen without modifying any system files. I’ve never used this before, however I have heard that it works, and that it doesn’t work and may cause some serious problems, so use good judgement when downloading this program.

Changing The Windows XP Login Screen

For changing the Windows XP login screens there’s also a manual, longer, more permanent way of doing it, and yes with this method it’s a lot easier to break your computer so instead of doing it manually, download StyleXP or Logon Loader to do it automatically. There’s also LogonStudio 1 that you can download as well and it basically does the same thing as Logon Loader. Logon Loader is a free program that automatically swaps your loginui.exe with another one you’ve downloaded, and that’s it. It’s all done for you.

Windows XP Boot Screen Resources

Graphic Styles Boot Screens
DeviantArt Bootskin screens
Belchfire Windows XP Boot screens
ThemeXP Boot Screens (May contain spyware)
Customize.org Bootskins
Winmodify.net Boot Screens
WinCustomize BootSkins

Windows XP Login Screen Resources

DeviantArt Logon Screens
TSS2000 Windows XP Logon Screens
WinCustomize Logon Screens
ThemeXP Logon Screens
Belchfire Logon Screens
Graphic Styles Logon Screens
Customize.org Logon Screens

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Completely Change Windows Look With Windows XP Themes and Visual Styles

Are you tired of that same old Windows XP look? Tired of only being able to change the color of the start bar from blue to green or silver? This is where Windows XP themes and visual styles come in. Not only can you change the theme to something more than the ugly classic XP look, but you can completely change around the design of Windows XP.

Beautifying Windows XP with Free Themes

First you’ll need to find some free Windows XP themes to download, you can get a ton over at DeviantArt. Most Windows XP themes will come with very specific instructions on how to make them work in a read me file or something similiar. Generally, you’re just going to unzip the files to certain locations, however most theme creators don’t seem to find it necessary to include instructions, and since I had a heck of a time trying to install my first themes I’m going to walk you through installing ~StefanKa’s Longhorn Inspirat Theme, because the install for this theme is a tad bit more extensive than other Windows XP themes, it should cover practically everything you’ll need to know.
Warning: Hacking Your Windows XP for enable visual styles and extra themes, can be dangerous to your operating system if you mess up so be sure to take care when doing this, and don’t go around deleting random stuff and moving things around unless you are absolutely sure of what you’re doing.

Enable Visual Style Support for Windows XP Themes

In order for you to use custom visual styles with Windows XP you need to enable support for Windows XP Visual Styles, it is not enabled by default on Windows XP for security reasons. Your options include downloading StyleXP, which is shareware ($19), or you can use the UXTheme Multipatcher utility to hack the uxtheme.dll for you. The current version of UXTheme Multi-Patcher does not work on Windows XP SP3, so be sure to uninstall SP3 before you try this, or just don’t download it yet and wait for an update for the Multi-Patcher.

Just follow the instructions for the Multipatcher, it’ll ask you a couple questions about your operating system version, then it will patch the UXTheme.dll, after it patches the UXTheme.dll a Windows File Protection window will popup, wait a minute or so before closing it, then you’ll have to restart your computer to complete the patching.

Installing The Longhorn Inspirat Theme

1. Download the Longhorn Inspirat Theme, and unzip it to any directory.



2. Copy the REFSAN font in the Inspirat Fonts folder and paste it into the Windows Fonts Folder by going to Control Panel -> Fonts. When you install it, the font’s name in the Windows XP Fonts folder will show up as ‘MS Reference Sans Serif (TrueType)’



3. Next, you’ll want to copy the ‘Inspirat’ and ‘Inspirat 2′ folders into C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes folder. Inspirat and Inspirat 2 are two different variations of the Inspirat theme. As you can see in the screenshot I also have Windows XP theme files for the Royale Vista 2 theme.



4. We’re almost done, now all you have leftover is the Toolbar for Y’z folder. Y’z Toolbar is a free program that allows you to change the toolbar icons in Explorer and Internet explorer. You’ll have to download and extract Y’z Toolbar to your C:\Program Files\YzToolbar directory



5. Copy the files in the Toolbar for Y’z folder that you unzipped into the C:\Program Files\YzToolbar\Themes directory. If you want to use the Jade toolbar themes, just unzip them to their own ‘Jade’ folder in the ‘Themes’ folder.



6. Now go to Control Panel -> Display -> Appearance Tab -> Under Windows and buttons -> Select Inspirat and click apply. Now you should have your new visual style up and running, under the ‘Color Scheme’ you can select different schemes for the Windows XP theme.
   
   Here’s an example of what you should see.

7. We’re not done yet, now you’ll have to open up Y’z Toolbar, click on english, and then select your theme in the Y’z Toolbar Settings, for the Inspirat theme we’re going to select ‘Longhorn’, hit apply and notice the changes made.
   

You can do this with any of the downloadable themes at DeviantArt. Some may have instructions and others may not.

There are also several software options that you can use as well:
WindowsBlinds
WinStyle
StyleXP
DesktopX

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As you’ve read in this guide you’ve found some amazing that can be done with Windows XP to improve the look and freshen up the aging operating system, this may just be what keeps you hooked onto Windows XP as Windows Vista isn’t delivering what was promised.
Now it’s your turn to tell me what software and what themes do you use for your Windows XP?

If you have any problems or questions feel free to leave me a comment or drop me an email.