Vista Glazz and Vista Themes

This tutorial will teach you how to install a Windows Vista Theme, complete with full transparency (the Full Transparency only works with Windows Aero enabled PC’s)

Windows Vista spoke of alot of features but when it arrived many of the features were nowhere to be found which left the hacking/modding community alot of work to do.

Anyway I wanted to highlight to utilites which can really enhance the appearance of Windows Aero (with very little performance degradation).  The first tool you’ll need is Vista Glazz by Code Gazer which you can download below:

Vista Glazz Official Code Gazer website

Vista Glazz is a really neat utility which automatically replaces the Windows Vista .dll files required to change your Windows Vista Theme.

So First download Vista Glazz install it and run it you should get a screen like below:

It’s pretty straight forward to use, simply click the Computer Icon to change the .dll files and then click on the Color Palette Icon to change the Visual Style, this allows for transparency even in maximized windows (pretty cool).

If everything worked properly you should notice that when your Windows when maximized will maintain their transparency.

Now for maximum effect you need to download a new theme, I recommend the Windows 7 Theme by Vishal Gupta:

Download Windows Seven Theme Here

Follow the isntructions on that website, one problem I had was in the c:/Windows/Resources/Themes/ folder you must have the directory structure right.

e.g.

a .theme file directly in the Themes directory

then a folder with the same name as the .theme

with the shellstyle folders and other things in it.

TIP:  Look at the default Aero folder for guidance otherwise you might not see any difference

The above problems are where most people run into problems so if you have any questions or it’s not working leave a comment below and I will try and help.

Another theme I recommend is the MaxClear theme which can be downloaded here:

Max Clear Theme Windows Vista

Thanks for reading!

Related posts

• New Awesome Tutoring Website (0)
• My Most Recommended Freeware Software (0)
• I served a Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (1)
• How to setup Filesharing in Windows Vista (0)
• Essential Firefox Plugins for Web Developers (6)

Tags: Computer
Posted in Recommendations, Tutorials |

3 Responses to “How to tweak the way Windows Vista looks by Installing Vista Themes”

1. jordangarn.com » Blog Archive » Demoing Wordpress, Says:
   May 12th, 2009 at 5:24 pm

   [...] Link [...]

2. John Toele, Says:
   August 1st, 2009 at 1:48 pm

   nice and very informative information

3. Joe Mason, Says:
   May 9th, 2010 at 6:30 pm

   Windows Vista is good but it can hog your CPU and Memory.;:’

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.