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Author Topic: Vista alternative to Style (styles the explorer toolbar)  (Read 5635 times)

relequestual

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Vista alternative to Style (styles the explorer toolbar)
« on: August 13, 2008, 06:27 AM »
I'm in the process of reviewing Styler for my site, when I thought, "hold on, what about vista users?".
Yes, I'm still on xp. not quite ready to make the jump. lots of people have though.
does anyone know of a vista version of this app?
http://www.crystalxp...7-explorer-tools.htm
i did do some googling, and the thing is, i know there are many downloadable styles for it that look like they are in vista, but they are not, they are simply using an OS skin, often via windows blinds.
I just want to give my readers a vista alternative.

Any ideas or suggestions appreciated
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Dirhael

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Re: Vista alternative to Style (styles the explorer toolbar)
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2008, 07:15 AM »
By styles I'm assuming you're taking about visual styles and not the toolbar skins that styler also does? If so, the best alternative (if you don't mind patching a few system files) is the freeware tool VistaGlazz (the latest "beta" version supports SP1). It's a one-click solution and couldn't be easier.

If you don't like the idea of having system files modified the only other alternative that I can think of is TuneUp Utilities 2008. It works much the same way that Styler does in XP by having a small service running in the background that modifies the relevant system files in memory instead of actually touching the files themelves. This program is not freeware though, and it does a lot more than just allowing you to run 3rd party visual styles.

There is also yet another alternative that works in both XP and Vista, and that's Windowblinds. There's a ton of styles available for it, but it uses its own theme engine/system so it's not exactly the same. It's not free though but it allows you to do much more advanced themes than Microsoft's visual styles does, including things such as toolbar buttons (like styler). Personally I prefer the first method I mentioned as it's a permanent and free solution that requires absolutely no extra resources from your system.


Re-reading your post I now see that you're just talking about styling the toolbars. Well in that case the only product I can think of that does this is Windowblinds. You can of course manually edit explorer.exe and other system files using a resource editor, but that's hardly something I'd suggest to any regular user.
Registered nurse by day, hobby programmer by night.
« Last Edit: August 13, 2008, 07:25 AM by Dirhael »

relequestual

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Re: Vista alternative to Style (styles the explorer toolbar)
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2008, 03:09 AM »
Yeh, I know of windows blinds. Cant say i like it that much. I guess when I move to vista Ill have to use it. suks. Thanks for the effort put into that post though.
Anyone else offer anything??
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