Vista Live Shell Pack For Windows XP

Martin Brinkmann
Sep 25, 2008
Updated • Dec 9, 2012
Windows
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10

I never quite understood the users who wanted to turn the visual appearance of their operating system into another operating system. The most popular conversions are without question available for Windows XP which can be turned into pretty much any other operating system visually, well except for Commodore C-64 maybe.

The Vista Live Shell Pack for Windows XP is a collection of three shell packs for Windows XP that turn the visuals of Windows XP into a Windows Vista looking interface. The three packs distinguish themselves only by color from each other. They are available in baby blue, gray and pink (gosh) (via Techyard).

Changes to Windows XP require the patching of the file uxtheme.dll. This file refuses changes otherwise and does not allow the installation of any themes that have not been officially released by Microsoft. Vista Live Shell Pack comes with an installer that includes the uxtheme.dll patcher making it very easy to install the new themes.

The installer provides a list of files that will be installed on the system. It turns out that the pack installs and modifies lots of files on the system, especially those with icons and other graphic information in them.

Many other files get updated as well if the user chooses so. Some noteworthy ones are the boot logo, logon screen, screensaver, the installation of Windows Vista fonts, the skin and some applications (ViOrb, TaskSwitchXP and RebIC). Everything can be unchecked in the installer. The installer can create a system restore point which is important to do in case something goes wrong during installation.

Update: The website the program was hosted on is no longer available. You can still download the latest version of the program from third party download sites like Softpedia. Since it is no longer updated, it is important that you create a backup first before you start running the program on your system.

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Comments

  1. feh said on March 7, 2009 at 9:21 pm
    Reply

    its ok

  2. pavan said on October 17, 2008 at 1:41 pm
    Reply

    good

  3. Josh said on September 29, 2008 at 6:03 am
    Reply

    This looks really nice!

  4. Gravity said on September 28, 2008 at 12:31 pm
    Reply

    awesome… worked amazing on my XP
    i compiled a list of amesome vista themes from deviant art
    http://www.gravityblue.com/2008/09/27/5-awesome-vista-and-xp-themes/

  5. Womble said on September 26, 2008 at 6:54 pm
    Reply

    The installer creates a system restore point so yes you can revert your system to how it was before you installed.

  6. Sameer said on September 26, 2008 at 6:59 am
    Reply

    i just want to know if it can restore my system to normal after uninstall

    i am guessing thts not possible

  7. b1k3r4ck said on September 25, 2008 at 1:48 pm
    Reply

    Nice find! I’m using Vista 64 right now and it’s working flawlessly so far. But I still have an XP box that game on. I’ve made the XP machine look as close to Vista as I can but this seems like it would have been a lot less work. Think I’ll give this a try on a VM and see if it works any better than the other transformation packs out there.

  8. garbanzo said on September 25, 2008 at 1:16 pm
    Reply

    there are much nicer shell packs out there:

    http://www.trucsenvrac.com/shellpacks.php
    http://www.crystalxp.net/galerie/en.id.130.htm

    here’s a nice one that just replaces your icons and system bitmaps with Tango icons:

    http://vertigosity.deviantart.com/art/Tango-Patcher-6000-8-03-62421428

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