Get Vista's productivity features in XP

Posted by tech master  |  at  3:53 PM No comments

Make your Windows XP look and perform like vista.

1. Taskbar Visual Tips



Visual tooltips are small visual previews of windows; they appear when you move
your mouse pointer over an item in the taskbar. Download it from here
Visual Tooltip.

Unzip the file and run VisualToolTip.exe. Now move the mouse pointer over the
taskbar and you'll be able to see previews of programs.

2. Getting the Vista Look

For custom themes to work on XP, you first need to patch the UXTHEME.DLL
file. If you'd like, you can download  an automated patcher from

HERE. Run the patcher and cancel any warnings about Windows Files
being replaced. Reboot, and you'll be able to use custom themes. Copy the theme
files you download into C:\Windows\Resources\Themes. Double-click the
.theme file to preview the theme. In "Display" properties windows, click on
Apply to apply the theme. Sites like
www.themexp.org and www.devianart.com
have loads of themes.

3. Vista Start Menu

This is a little different from the one in XP: it has a search bar.
Vista Start Menu Emulator is a
little application that brings Vista's Start Menu to XP. If you have a good
Vista theme installed, this Start Menu replacement will work as a great
combination.

4. Flipping Windows

Top Desk is
a neat little utility that allows you to get the effect Vista gives you when you
multitask between applications. After you install Top Desk, pressing [Windows
key] + [Tab] will show you a visual list of all running applications.

5. Using a Sidebar

Sidebars are a great way to have instant access to information such as
weather, RSS feeds etc all same time on your desktop.

The most famous has to be the
Google Desktop. Once installed, right-click on the icon in the
syatem tray and make sure you set it as a sidebar.

6. Performance boost

ReadyBoost is one of the Vista's performance boosting features.

For ReadyBoost, you can find a commercial software called
eBoostr.
Once installed, reboot the computer. Start the program, and you can now add
a flash drive that youwant it to use. Enter the size of the cache file you want
to use.