Vista and XP

Thursday, March 20, 2008 by CptCrckpot | Discussion: Skinning

Is there a skin out there that would make my XP and Vista machines look identical?  If so, what is it?  If not, can someone make one?

I have 2 PCs, one with XP and one with Vista.  I've been trying to find a skin that would make the interfaces on both machines look identical.  I'd prefer an Aero-ish theme, but at this point I'd be willing to try almost anything.  I've tried a variety of skins, and so far none of them have quite worked.  The biggest problems seem to be with the logon/logoff button area and with the user pic area. 

In every skin I've looked at, if they've tried to reproduce the look of the search bar and logon/off buttons of the Vista start menu, they always size the search bar and the buttons wrong, making them bigger than they actually are in Vista.  If they sized them to match Vista, then you could use the skin with XP or Vista.  As it is, if you try to use one of those skins with Vista, the oversized search bar and buttons are visible under the proper ones, which looks terrible.

The other problem is the user pic area.  If the skin includes a fram for the user pic, it's always in the wrong place in Vista, so that the Vista user pic is out of wack.  It's even worse any of the other icons appear in that spot while mousing over the task list.

What I think would work best would be if the skin had 2 substyles, one for each OS, with the only difference being that the Vista one had a blank search bar/logon button area, and no user pic fram at the top.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a skin like that.

3 Reply 11 Referrals
CptCrckpot
Reply #1 Wednesday, March 26, 2008 11:49 PM
Based upon the total lack of any responses, I'm guessing the answer is no. That's why I decided to do it myself. Using the Royale Vista 2 skin as a starting point, I modified the skin so that the start menu looks almost identical on XP and Vista. I'm far from an expert skinner, but if I could do it, certainly someone else could do it, and do it better. Since I simply modded someone else's skin, I'm not about to post it, but if anyone wants to see it, there is a pic comparing the two start menus posted at http://cptcrckpot.wincustomize.com/

Vampothika
Reply #2 Thursday, March 27, 2008 12:18 AM
Cpt, there are many skins now that are xp and vista compatable in the one skin, so that way you can have 2 skins for the price of one basically.......    and both yr pcs will be the same.

I guess its also a matter of going to the window blind gallery and taking a good look and seeing what is xp and vista compatable......every skin that is, will say so in its discription.....

CptCrckpot
Reply #3 Thursday, March 27, 2008 12:49 AM
Compatible is not the same as identical, first of all. Second of all, many of the skins that claim to be compatible with both, really aren't. Even skins with substyles for both XP and Vista still don't look right in some way or another. For instance, every skin I've looked at that tries to recreate the bottom of the Vista start menu gets the dimensions wrong, so that it doesn't fit properly if you use the skin in Vista, despite the skin being labeled as "Vista Compatible". Am I picky? Yes.

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