Windows 7 is doing quite good these days. After Microsoft launched the Betarelease that is available for everyone to download. And many people who are lucky enough to use the new Windows 7 beta say that it is cool, fast, and nice looking! Well, I must say that I totally agree. I am using it and I haven’t had any problems with it… It works like a charm…

But if you have some crap pc ( don’t worry, I know it’s only temporarily) or maybe some other obstacles that don’t let you install Windows 7 then I might have something for you…

I know that you would, at least like to feel that Win 7 design if you can’t use the Windows 7 itself. All those newly designed features like big and iconized taskbar buttons, Windows 7 Superbar, or even full Start ORB. Now you can have all that in Windows XP too. (cool ins’t it?)

Here’s how your desktop will look like after you complete the steps below:

And here’s how to make it possible:

1. Download SevenVG Refresh Theme here and extract its contents. You should see a folder named: “SevenVG Refresh Theme for Windows XP by Vishal Gupta“.

2. In this folder, you’ll get 3 more folders:

a) Fonts (This folder contains Segoe UI fonts required for the theme. Run Fonts.exe file to install them.)

b) Styler Toolbar (This folder contains Styler setup and SevenVG styler toolbar skin. It will provide toolbar and commandbar in Explorer that looks like Windows 7)

c) Theme (This folder contains the main theme. Run “Theme.exe” file to install it.)

3. Apply the theme using Desktop Properties and you’re ready to go! Enjoy!

4. Also make sure you have patched the “uxtheme.dll” file (needs to be patched to allow 3rd party visual styles), if it’s not patched, then download and run the UXtheme Patcher from here:

For XP SP3 Users - Download UXTheme Patcher here
For XP SP2 Users - Download UXTheme Patcher here

Ok, you applied the new theme. But now you need to make iconized taskbar buttons on your XP to look just like on Windows 7.