Hey all, this is an updated version of my tutorial at the IFSZ, on how to skin your Windows XP and make it think it's a Mac! It's very simple, and I tried to make this as detailed as physically possible. I also bolded the main parts and colored all of the links blue for easier reference. :o If anyone has any questions, problems, or comments please post here. If you notice a typo or a broken link pm me and I'll try to fix it asap. ;)
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Tips and Tricks #1: "Making XP Think It's a Mac"Okay, so we all know and love the buetiful slick style of Mac OS X, but most of us own an XP. Instead of getting an emulator and buying a Mac, why not replicate the look and feel of the Mac? It's really easy, and I'm about to tell you how. ;)
The first thing, and probably easiest, is to take your
Windows TaskBar and move it to the top of the screen. To do this,
right click on the taskbar and make sure that 'Lock The Taskbar' is
unchecked. Now
click and hold and drag the taskbar to the top of your desktop. Ta-Da! Easy as that. :D We did this because for a Mac OS X look, the Taskbar must be on the top of the screen. ;)
Now we need to change our boring old Windows XP Skin into a buetiful and slick Mac-Like skin, this is very simple. You'll need
WindowBlinds, the popular skinning program for Windows XP. You can get
WindowBlinds for free
here. You then need to take the file you downloaded (
Windowblinds4_public.exe) and
double click on it. You will then install the program, Windowblinds. You may need to restart your computer after the installation is finished.
Now, just for the purpose of this tutorial, I have made a list of the best Mac-like skins. All skins are courtesy of
Wincustomize.com. To download and use any of the skins you must register at their site. ;)
iBar Mac BrushedMac PC XDark OS X PantherTiger Milk 2IceBrushed PantherMac OS X PantherOnce you have chosen a skin, click
Download and find the
.wba file in the zip or whatever you downloaded.
Double click on the .wba file and
WindowBlinds will automatically open the skin. Click
Apply This Skin Now and the skin will take a moment to...well...apply itself. :p You can now
close WindowBlinds. And be happy that you now have a Mac-Like skin. 8)
Sure, your XP now resembles a Mac more then it did about 10-5 minutes ago, but that doesn't mean we're done! :o
We now should change the wallpaper, and get a
mac-like wallpaper. Such as any of those included in the
Mac OS X Panther skin. Even if you don't like the skin, download it for the wallpapers included in the
.zip file. ;)
Extract it, find the wallpaper, and
right click>set as desktop backround.
Great, now we can add the finishing touches! :)
You may remember that
Mac OS X has a '
dock' on the bottom of the screen. The dock is one of the best features of this tutorial. To get a dock, you'll need the freeware program known as
ObjectDock. You can get ObjectDock for free
here. Download it and use the
.exe file to install the program.
Now that we have ObjectDock installed, we need to make it look like the Mac dock. To do this, we must change the
background and
icons.
The following is a list of great
Mac-Like backgrounds, to install a backround, download it and put ALL of the files into the program files folder for ObjectDock.
TigerMac OS BackgroundMacBackStriped MacNow we need to change the icons on our dock. The best mac-like icons are
MacSoft and the
Mac OS Theme. But you can find a lot of great ones
here.
Yay! Our dock, skin, and wallpaper are all looking slick and sweet! Now what you ask??? Well now we need to change the
icons for XP. Download
IconPackager from this site. Note that it is only a
trial version, and will last only
30 days. Find
mac-like icons here.
TA DA! We're done! Your XP should now look like a Mac OS X! Congratulations! ------------------------------------
Hope that helped some people and fellow mac-lovers. :D Comments are welcome!
-AlphaRob--VG Bliss Admin 
