Windows Vista Custom PC Design
Microsoft and Dell recently partnered up to create a super-cool custom PC in celebration of Microsoft releasing Windows Vista to manufacturing earlier this month.
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21.11.2006 Themes for Windows Vista
Thanks to portos for this thread with Themes for Windows Vista post in our forum.
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11.4.2007 How To Make a Custom Vista Disc AIO
odeeee report How To
Make a Custom Vista Disc All In One in our forum.
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26.1.2007 25 Windows Vista Themes for XP
It is an amazing Windows Vista themes for your Windows XP.
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15.4.2007 70 Vista Themes For Windows XP with Installers
Here are some amazing Windows Vista themes for your Windows XP. Thanks to Yurek3 for this download.
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12.7.2007 5 Nice NEW Vista Themes
Thanks to lsdmeasap for this download. This Windows Vista themes are AMAZING! You can find more screenhots in our forum, link below.
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17.5.2007 How to: Create custom wallpaper collections in Windows 7
Do you love customizing your Windows desktop? If you do, you'll love this trick!
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28.7.2009 Windows Live Custom Domains - Free Email Hosting
A new service was added to the Windows Live Beta family today - Windows Live Custom Domains. The basic idea is that anyone with a domain can now point their MX record to the Live servers. What that means is that users can have Microsoft's servers hosting their own domain's email accounts for free.
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20.11.2005 Custom PC makers finally get Windows 7 preinstallation kit
On October 12, Microsoft provided system builders with the Windows 7 OEM Preinstallation Kit (OPK) tools and related documentation they need to preload and customize Windows 7 on multiple new PCs.
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13.10.2009 Windows 7 themes download
Here is several Windows 7 Slide show themes for download. Download links are dirext from microsoft.com Enjoy!
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14.7.2009 Download Windows 7 Themes and Wallpapers from Microsoft
Personalize your PC - And just as Windows Vista, well, the Ultimate editions at least, came with the exclusive DreamScene video backgrounds, Windows 7 also offers tailored content unavailable to previous releases of the Windows operating system.
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17.2.2009 Windows 7 Box Art Themes & Wallpapers
I have just updated my Windows 7 Wallpapers and Windows 7 Themes Gallery with the following additions.
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7.8.2009 Free Windows 7 Themes and Wallpapers on the Personalization Gallery
Concomitantly with the worldwide general availability of Windows 7, on October 22nd, 2009, Microsoft also released a collection of new content designed to enable users of certain editions of the operating system to personalize their desktops.
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4.11.2009 Microsoft opens up Windows 7 to advertisers via downloadable themes
The same way that it already allows advertisers to buy placement on various Microsoft sites and properties, Microsoft may allow them to extend their brands onto Windows 7.
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13.11.2009 Over 10 Million Custom XP Downloads Get Chinese Pirates Jail Sentences
Chinese authorities cracked down on a group of four software pirates for offering a custom-built copy of Windows XP, which was downloaded in excess of 10 million times.
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24.8.2009 Microsoft: All your themes are belong to us
On Monday 12th December, Francisco Javier Ocasio Gotay aka KoL received a Microsoft legal threat regarding a theme he released 5 months ago.
Not content with threatening innocent bloggers on material related to Windows Vista, the company is moving onto its next attack plan by demanding that ported themes from Vista visual styles back to Windows XP be removed.
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14.12.2005 Windows XP SP3 Twice as Fast as Windows Vista – Leaves Vista SP1 in the Dust
Forget about Windows Vista. And forget about Windows Vista SP1. Microsoft's latest Windows client has been quite sluggish to begin with. This in both consumer adoption and in terms of the performance it delivers.
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27.11.2007 Windows Vista Wow! Forget about Vista SP1, XP SP3 and Windows 7!
That's it, forget about Windows XP Service Pack 3, about Windows 7, the next iteration of Windows and even about Windows Vista Service Pack 1.
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1.2.2008 Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2
Feb 26th, 2008. Principled Technologies has released two Microsoft commissioned reports on Windows Vista SP1 performance. In these tests, Principled Technologies measured responsiveness of Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2 when performing a set of common business and home tasks.
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28.2.2008 Vista SP1 RC1 Flies Past Vista RTM and Windows XP SP2
Despite the fact that Microsoft has expressed its official position regarding testing Windows Vista Service Pack 1 ahead of its finalization, there is simply too much of a hunger for the service pack.
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27.12.2007 Vista SP1 Won't Resolve the 4 GB RAM Limitation of 32-bit Windows Vista
32-bit Windows operating systems, and Windows Vista makes no exception whatsoever to this rule, are limited in terms of the amount of system memory that can be addressed to no more than 4 GB.
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4.1.2008 Vista Loader 2.1.3 - Windows Vista Activator 2008 Support SP1 with No Boot String
Vista Loader is one of the most successful Vista activation crack available to date, second only to physical modify (hardmod) the BIOS to include SLIC table to make BIOS Vista activation-compliant.
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15.5.2008 Microsoft to Kill the Grace Timer and OEM BIOS Windows Vista Cracks with Vista SP1
With the advent of Windows Vista, cracks also became available being designed to bypass the activation process of the operating system.
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4.12.2007 Windows Vista on Super Nintendo, As Real As Vista on PSP
We're puzzled and confused... How can a console that's at least ten times less powerful than the acclaimed PSP cope with Windows Vista's requirements?
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15.8.2007 Vista SP1 Features the Same Sins as Windows Vista
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 comes with the same sins as Windows Vista. The service pack is not even out the door, and is already putting users at risk.
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16.1.2008 Will Vista SP1 Go Where Vista Never Went? Even with XP SP3 and Windows 7?
Throughout 2007, it became painfully clear to Microsoft that the main competitor for Windows Vista was not Apple's Mac OS X or even the open source Linux operating system but Windows XP, and, in fact, specifically XP SP2.
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1.3.2008 Microsoft Makes Its Own: 32-bit Windows Vista vs. 64-bit Windows Vista
With Windows Vista, Microsoft delivered both the 32-bit and 64-bit flavors concomitantly, a first for the company, whose Windows XP x64 Professional (April, 2005) was launched one year after Windows XP SP2 (August 2005) and four after the initial 32-bit Windows XP (2001).
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8.1.2008 Microsoft: Windows Vista vs. Windows XP – Definitely Vista!
As far as Microsoft is concerned there is only one choice possible in terms of desktop clients. But Windows Vista is also the clear option over Windows XP when it comes down to the Redmond company's preferred operating system for mobile PCs.
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6.9.2007 Genuine Windows Vista vs. Pirated Windows Vista
Enlarge picture
Essentially there is absolutely no difference between a genuine and pirated copy of Windows Vista in terms of functionality. Sure, there is a very good chance that the counterfeit version of the operating system would contain malicious code and that the user experience would be gravely diminished because the fabric of the platform has been tampered with in the cracking process.
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12.9.2007 How to Install Vista Language Packs MUI on all versions of Vista + video tutorial
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, and Vista Business versions of the Microsoft licensing restrictions can only preserve a language!
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23.9.2008Google launches Themes API for iGoogle
Google has released an iGoogle Themes API, giving designers the ability to create their own iGoogle Theme. With the iGoogle Themes API, developers can
design and share a theme with the tens of millions of iGoogle users around the world, providing even more options for users to customize their iGoogle
experience. To jumpstart the development, and for the a little bit of inspiration, Google has also released custom themes from innovative designers
Yves Behar, Mark Frauenfelder, Troy Lee and John Maeda. A new themes directory, similar to the Google Gadgets directory, has also been created.
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16.01.2008Windows Mobile 6.5 designer themes showcased
Microsoft recently announced that it will offer a variety of free and exclusive designer themes, color palettes and wallpapers to help users
personalize their Windows phones. The latest Windows Mobile 6.5 build comes bundled with some free designer themes from top designers - Ron Arad, Vera
Wang, Rock and Republic and Diane von Fürstenberg.
Read full story.....
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07.04.2009Slideshow in the Windows Live Photo Gallery
We didnt do much to the Slideshow feature in the Windows Live Photo Gallery, but there have been several questions coming in about this feature, so we
thought that it was worth a brief rundown of whats changed.
In a nutshell, heres how the slideshow feature works in this
release:
- XP users: Basic slideshow only (equivalent to the ˜Classic theme on Vista). No transitions, and no support for videos. The rich
themes are very dependent on the Vista graphics model, so it will take a fair amount of work to get the rich themes working on XP (more than we could
bite off for this release).
- Vista users (basic graphics hardware): The experience should be unchanged from Vista. You may see a limited
set of themes available, and may or may not see transport controls depending on the capabilities of your graphics card.
- Vista users
(premium graphics hardware): The experience should be unchanged from Vista.
We
blogged about the Vista Slideshow experience previously. Most
of this still applies (with the exception of the above notes). One exception is that although the rich themes were only available on certain Vista
SKUs, all themes are available in all Vista SKUs (again, depending on your graphics hardware).
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20.09.2007Gmail offers new Inbox themes
Gmail owners, Google, wanted "to go beyond simple color customization" and have announced 30 new themes. There's many new themes to fit your
style, a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time and even
a weather theme that can rain on your mailbox. There's even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) to geek up your mailbox. Google have also done
some work to Gmail's default look to make it "crisper and cleaner". To customise your inbox, go to the Themes tab under Settings.
Read full story.....
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20.11.2008Debugging a Per-User Installation Error on Windows Vista
Chris Jackson: Yesterday, a friend asked for some assistance debugging an issue with Windows Installer. It was one of those situations where you've
looked at the problem so closely, so many times, that you just needed another set of eyes. (They're close to shipping, so they've been doing nothing
but look at bugs, probably for a while.)
Some background:
What they're doing is a rather interesting use of
Windows Installer. They're using it to drop a setup.exe and then run it. So, they have a custom action of type 0xC02, which is a deferred custom
action, promoted to not use impersonation, which runs as an exe. This custom action spawns another version of itself (with different arguments), and
then the process exits so the installer can complete. The second version of this custom action then wants to uninstall the msi, as well as launch the
setup.exe. So, the msi is just a way to package up the setup.exe.
And, with UAC, it was breaking.
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25.10.2007Google Talk Gets Avatars,
Themes
While Google Talk remains a
slimmed down communications
client compared the likes of
AIM Triton and MSN Messenger,
the search giant has added a
few new consumer-oriented
features to its latest update
released late Thursday. Google
Talk 1.0.0.92 now supports
buddy icons and nine different
themes for chat windows...
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08.04.2006It's Another Vista TCO Study
Microsoft is flaunting a new Windows Vista total cost of ownership study thatno surprisepresents rosy findings.
Wipro
Technologies and GCR Custom Research produced the report, which findings Microsoft presented in a conference call this afternoon. Microsoft's PR
agency dispatched the wrong dial-in number, causing the meeting to start considerably late. My afternoon was packed, so I snatched a PDF of the
LiveMeeting PowerPoint and moved on to other things. A fuller white paper is now available.
The report focuses on Vista TCO
benefits for mobile PCs. GCR concluded that Vista would reduce mobile PC TCO by $605 annually, or 14 percent, compared to Windows XP.
Reports of this type are always suspect, because they are custom commissioned by vendors. When I was an analyst, I worked on several custom
reports used by companies for internal purposes, meaning to improve the business strategy. External custom reports have an inherent bias because the
client is paying for them for a broader marketing objective.. Would Microsoft promote a commissioned report that found Vista TCO to be less than
Windows XP or, gasp, Linux? The answer is obvious.
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06.09.2007Desktop Security: Create Custom Login Experiences With Credential Providers For Windows Vista
Credential providers in
Windows Vista allow you to
customize the logon experience
and integrate the
authentication methods that
best meet your organization's
needs. With this article,
learn how to write your own...
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27.01.2007Bridging the Vista Graphics
Gap
Graphics performance,
which has long been an
afterthought for most
corporate PCs and many
consumers, will move to the
forefront with the launch of
Windows Vista, Microsoft's
next Windows operating
system.
Vi
sta, due late next year, will
offer four different themes,
including the well-publicized
three-dimensional Aero Glass
with transparent
windows.
Starting
with a Classic theme, which
looks like Windows XP, each
will offer successively more
advanced features, also call
for successively more powerful
graphics.
Vista is
expected to measure the
graphics grunt available in a
PC and automatically serve up
the proper UI.
But
what's still unclear is where
many of today's PCs will fall
on the Vista interface
spectrum and thus how
consumers and corporate buyers
who wish to gain the most
advanced features can get
prepared. ..
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16.11.2005Windows 7 to add slideshow wallpapers and more!
Don't worry Windows 95 Plus! enthusiasts, Microsoft hasn't forgotten about you and your themes. A recently updated MSDN Library document shows that
Microsoft hasn't just brushed themes under the carpet, but instead dusted it off, added some new polish and is even putting it under the spotlight.
The document "
Creating and Installing Theme
Files" (now edited) has been updated with several "additions to the .theme file format were made for Windows 7". They include: (Click Read
More)
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10.08.2008UxStyle beta now available
Rafael Rivera from Within Windows has announced that UxStyle Core beta now available for download. To give us some information on what UxStyle Core
is, we'll start with a little history. Back in the Windows XP days, users were able to modify a system file called Uxtheme.dll and create custom
.msstyle files, thus creating their own desktop themes to replace the default "Luna" theme. However, over time, patching went from just one file
to multiple files and repatching was necessary when Microsoft would update the Uxtheme.dll files.
Read full story.....
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22.06.2009Get Windows 7's Best Features Right Now
If you're tired of hearing about
Windows 7's upcoming
features while you sit and stare at your aging XP or Vista desktop, take solace in a few free apps and themes that can give you a taste right now.
While it's true that Windows 7 isn't much different from Windows Vista (inside and out), a few neat features are worth trying out, and you
can do it without installing the Windows 7 Preview. Here are a few free apps and alternatives that simulate Windows 7's built-in features.
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26.11.2008Microsoft's Domain Service
Goes 'Live'
Microsoft said late Tuesday
that its Custom Domains
service had officially
launched, making it the third
Windows Live project to come
out of beta. The service
allows a customer to use a
custom domain name with
Windows Live Mail and Hotmail...
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28.06.2006Beautiful Windows Vista icons a double-edged sword
I admit it. I'm an iconphile. Back in the Windows 3.0 days, I used to go and change all my Windows icons by hand. I thought this was pretty
impressive. Admittedly, it didn't help me pick up women for some reason.
Since then, icons have come a very long way. A VERY long way.
With Windows Vista, the end-user icon experience out of the box is beautiful. But from an icon creator's point of view, the lack of backward
compatibility and effort to support has gone up tremendously. As a result, we've seen a lot fewer custom icons made for Windows Vista than one might
have expected.
Microsoft made three decisions with Windows Vista that will forever affect the way we look at icon making on Windows.
Read full story.....
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24.08.2007Windows 7 to add slideshow wallpapers, theme gallery and theme packs
Dont worry Windows 95 Plus! enthusiasts, Microsoft hasnt forgotten about you and your themes. A recently updated MSDN Library document shows that
Microsoft hasnt just brushed themes under the carpet, but instead dusted it off, added some new polish and is even putting it under the spotlight.
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06.08.2008Workaround Discovered For "Clean Install" With Vista Upgrade
DailyTech has posted a 7-step
workaround courtesy of Paul
Thurrott (via Microsoft
internal documents) on how to
perform a clean install with a
Windows Vista Upgrade DVD. Per
Microsoft's new licensing
requirements for Vista, users
are required to install a
Windows Vista Upgrade from
within Windows XP and to make
matters worse, the Windows XP
license is forfeited. The
process may be tedious, but
few will argue when they
compare the price differences
between the upgrade and retail
versions. Here we go:
- Boot from the
Windows Vista Upgrade DVD and
start the setup
program.
- When prompted
to enter your product key, DO
NOT enter it. Click "Next"
and proceed with setup. This
will install Windows Vista as
a 30-day trial.
- When
prompted, select the edition
of Vista which you have
purchased and continue with
setup.
- Once setup has
been completed and you have
been brought to the desktop
for the first time, run the
install program from within
Windows Vista.
- This
time, type in your product key
when prompted.
- When
asked whether to perform an
Upgrade or Custom (advanced)
install, choose Custom
(advanced) to perform a clean
install of Vista. Yes, this
means that you will have to
install Vista for a second
time.
- Once setup has
completed for the second time,
you should be able to activate
Windows Vista normally. You
can also delete the
Windows.old directory which
contains information from the
first Vista
install.
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31.01.2007The Best Windows Vista Blog Contest 2008
WinVistaClub, in association with Windows Vista Magazine, is organizing a contest to recognize some of the Best Windows Vista Blogs and Websites.
If you run a blog or a website, which primarily focuses on Windows Vista you can submit your blog and participate. It could focus on Tips,
Tutorials, Support, Customization, Themes, News, Views, or anything which may interest a Windows Vista user.
The Panel of Judges comprises
of Steve Sinchak (MVP of TweakVista.com), Steven Bink (Bink.nu), John Barnett (MVP of VistaSupport.mvps.org), Kerry Brown (MVP of VistaHelp.ca),
Barney Tormey (Global Moderator at Neowin.net), James Stables (Windows Vista Magazine), Emil Protalinski (Arstechnica), Aryeh Goretsky (MVP of
Lockergnome.com), and myself (HappyAndyK).
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13.08.2008Another Windows Vista SP1 Feature From TechEd
In one of the later session
during TechEd last week I
learned of another very cool
feature coming to Windows
Vista with Service Pack 1.
During his talk Wes Miller,
who is writing a ton for
TechNet magazine these days
mentioned that setup will now
be able to run either 32-bit
or 64-bit installs.
What does this mean?
Well basically a lot less
work for anyone who has to
deal with both 32-bit and
64-bit images. After SP1 you
will be able to deploy either
version of the OS from a
single DVD.
So
what?
Well the
reason this is a big deal is
if you are doing anything
custom with Windows PE then
you currently have to maintain
two boot wims (one 64 and one
32) and in extreme cases where
you have custom code you have
to maintain to codebase sets
because 64-bit WinPE doesn't
support 32bit code due to the
lack of WOW support .
It wasn't clear if WDS
would also offer this
capability, but it would make
sense.
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15.06.2007Google preparing to launch theme gallery for Chrome
Last week, information was spread that Google planned to implement proper theme support within their Chrome browser. Just recently, people have
discovered, in the developer builds of the browser, that the company has built in the theme support already. It was unclear how they'd plan to
display said themes, though many suspected the obvious choice of an online gallery; now, however, TechCrunch is reporting that this has been all but
confirmed, with several themes already having been discovered. TechCrunch states that the themes will be available at this link, which has obviously
yet to go online, but you can already preview it if you have the very latest build of the Chrome browser.
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
03.08.2009Gmail Updates Its Look, Adds Themes
Google's beloved web-based email client has always been ripe for third-party design customization (we've always been partial to the
Gmail Redesigned skin in
Better Gmail, for
example), but now Gmail is officially riding the interface customization train by offering 30-some new themes to spice up your inbox. Keep reading for
a screenshot tour of the cool new offerings...
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20.11.2008
