Do you ever find yourself wishing your dell was a mac? Are you envious of OS X Tiger’s sleek, modern interface? Well with one simple download you can transform your Windows computer so that it runs on the beautiful OS X interface. The program is called FlyakiteOSX and it’s completely free (although donations are encouraged). Flyakite only works with Windows XP so don’t try to use it with Linux or Vista.
FlyakiteOSX will reformat your windows template and install common mac OS X widgets (such as the object dock) so that your Windows computer looks just as flashy and sleek as any mac. If you don’t feel like downloading FlyakiteOSX and would rather configure your PC manually than follow these instructions:
Programs You’ll Need:
- StyleXP or WindowBlinds (skins the Graphical User Interface of your operating system)
- ObjectBar (the white Finder bar on the top of Macs; has File, Edit, View, etc. on it.)
- ObjectDock, YzDock (discontinued), or MobyDock (The dock on the bottom of a Mac that contains icons and shortcuts to programs)
- Trillian (chat program that can be skinned to resemble iChat)
- YzToolbar (skins the toolbar icons in your Windows windows)
- YzShadow (puts a lovely drop shadow under your windows á la Mac OS X)
- Rainlendar (popular skinable desktop calendar)
- Rainmeter (skinnable desktop system statistics)
- iTunes for Windows (self-explanatory)
- Icons (The pretty little pictures on your desktop that point you somewhere. There are millions out there, but try the link provided for over a 1,000 lifted from Mac OS X 10.3 aka Panther)
You don’t actually need every single one of these programs but if your gonna do something like this you might as well go all the way.
Now here’s the instructions. This isn’t an easy task so if you aren’t familiar with computers I would just take the easy way out and download FlyakiteOSX.
1) I use StyleXP for my visual style, so that’s what I’ll detail here. WindowBlinds isn’t that different, but if you prefer it, be my guest. The first thing you’ll need to do is download a skin. StudioTwentyEight is the best site for this. Download your ZIP, and extract it to C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes. Open up StyleXP and load it up.
2) Now find a good ObjectBar skin. There’s tons of theme websites out there i would suggest goggle searching “cmri themes”. Download the one you like best and extract it to your ObjectBar folder. Open the new folder in there (named something like the theme you downloaded) and double-click the .OBTHEME icon.
3) Next is the dock. Open up whichever version you settled on downloading. This is pretty easy to set up. All you need to do is drag shortcuts or executables to the dock and you’ll have a shortcut. To change it’s icon, right-click and select “change icon” and chose what you want to change it to. To get new icons to select, make sure you put them in the icons subfolder (for YzDock) or the main dock folder (for ObjectDock).
4) For those that don’t know, Trillian is a great chat program that sticks AIM, MSN, ICQ, and IRC into one program. If you don’t use it, don’t bother adding it. You may or may not need the Pro version to get the skin to work. An excellent choice for skins are Danimator’s iChat skins. Extract it to your Trillian skin directory, open up Trillian’s preferences, go to skins, and select the new skin you want to use. You can follow the readme for some more precise directions to get it looking perfect.
5) YzToolbar and YzShadow are pretty self-explanatory. You can find good YzToolbar skins pretty easily, just do a google search.
6) Rainlendar and Rainmeter are also pretty easy to install and set-up. Just run the installer, and find a good skin. Again, there’s many to choose from. I’d suggest searching the forums at Aqua-Soft and AquaXP. You can find some helpful information there.
7) Shut down, reboot your system and ta da! You now have a mac! (or so it appears)
That’s all. Personally I don’t think it’s worth the time or effort to do this manually. FlyakiteOSX is way easier, faster, and works just as well.
Related posts:
- The First 5 Programs That You Should Install on Your Computer In this list I will recommend the first five FREE...
- Windows 7 + Windows XP = Almost as good as OSX We all know that when Windows Vista was released...
- Windows 7 Full Graphics Support ATI just released their new Catalyst 9.3 drivers, which...
- Windows 7 Available to Everyone! Well today is Cinco de Mayo and that means...
- Windows 7 Had 3.67 Percent of the Market Share at the end of October It has been a week and a half since...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Loading ...
for pure aesthetics this is fine but if you prefer the file system and layout of macs, then switch to Ubuntu. it looks like windows but runs on UNIX.
Cool post, just subscribed.
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.