Customizing XP and Vista's Interface Without Utilizing Precious System Resources

I don't know about you but I consider myself a power user, and when someone is looking at my computer I want them to know that. This is the reason I build my own custom power rigs, and spend hours tweaking and fine tuning to ensure the best performance I can get. Even when it comes to something as trivial as my user interface I want everyone to know that I mean business. But, programs like Windows Blinds and Style XP just seem clumsy and resource intensive to me. Believe me, I have run them both and sometimes they work great, and sometimes they don't. Loading an updated video card driver sometimes causes Style XP and Window Blinds to crash, and why would you want to run any more applications in the background than you absolutely have to when there is a better way? The solution is UXTheme, and all it does it allow you to use 3rd party visual styles with XP's existing theme interface.

> Download XTheme HERE
> Run the program and let it reboot your computer for you.
> You can download visual styles from the same site listed above, but I have found a much better selection HERE
> All you have to do now is extract the zipped styles to C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes
> Now you can apply the new visual styles by right clicking the desktop and selecting "Properties" and then going to the "Themes" tab.

And that's all there is to it! You get new visual styles without any 3rd party interface or unnecessary services running in the background. The same concept can be applied to Vista as well, and all you need to apply new visual styles are the hacked system files which can be found HERE (Both x64 and 32 bit versions are listed) Since Vista hasn't been out long there aren't too many visual styles available, but a good place to keep and eye on is Deviant Art.