How To Install Cool Windows 7 Theme Downloads For Windows XP

Don’t be jealous of your friends with Windows 7. Don’t run out and buy a new operating system or computer just so you can have the look and feel of Windows 7.
Maybe you like the orb, the toolbar, tray icons or the quick launch buttons? Well guess what, you can have them on your XP computer FOR FREE!
There are a few different themes and visual styles that you can grab. We found the best one and we will show you what you get and how to install it. It is not as easy as you would think.
The theme itself is a user on DeviantArt. This user has many great themes but today we will be looking at his Windows 7 transformation pack for Windows XP.

You can grab the download the Windows 7 themes for Windows XP here. We will also grab the Super Bar files from this link.
I found the theme and instructions from TechBliss Online. They have also provided a video I will share with you at the end of the post.

Inside the archive you will find four folders. We will really only be using the Visual Styles folder but there are some  great wallpapers (I say some because only one tickled my fancy and my wife liked one) in the wallpapers folder. Don’t worry you can use any wallpaper you want.  Next up we will have to download an application that allows us to use a third party theme. That application is called UXTheme Multipatcher and you can grab it from Softpedia.
To start we will need to run the EXE and hit the button marked Patch. Don’t be scared – you can always undo it by re-running this setup program again. Without UXTheme-Multipatcher you will not be able to use third party themes as we will be in the next few steps.

You need to confirm your operating system version and then you will need to restart. Once you have the UXTheme installed and you have the above archives downloaded and extracted, we can get started.
Go into the DeviantArt RAR file we downloaded first and find the directory called Visual Styles. Inside there you will find a directory called Windows Se7en. Copy that entire directory to c:\windows\resources\themes.
Once it is there go into the folder and double click on the theme’s file called Windows Se7en.msstyles. If you have extensions turned off it will say Windows Se7en but the icon will be the same as the one in the shot below:

That will bring up the Windows theme chooser (located in display properties). There you will click apply to apply the theme. Next you will run the ViGlance OneStep.exe file within the ViGlance zip file. This file adds some awesomeness to your task bar.

When you are complete you will have a Windows 7 like system! This ViGlance also installs a system tray icon that gives you options on what you want enabled or not. You can see the options below and they are all self explanatory.

You can use and apply any of the wallpapers that you extracted or choose your own. Here is what my desktop looked like when I was finished:

This YouTube video goes over how to set this all up step by step. And sometimes a video helps immensely if you can not figure out something.
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Let me know if you have any issues or questions! And if you are doing something similar but different, we would love to hear about it in the comments!