Well, I was going through some interesting stuff yesterday on “How to transform your PC” and I got a few good tips on how to make your XP resemble if not be Vista.

I have XP installed on one of my computers but since I have only 512MB RAM on it, I cannot install Vista. So I tried the next best thing, make XP look as close as possible to Vista. And the results were nearly as good. Here are some of the things I used. (all for free)

1. Vista Bricopacks:
   Download from Here - (size= 38.39 MB)What will this do … this is a shell pack so basically it will change the icons, and default window images to resemble the ones by Vista … note as this is a shell style it is not a resource hogger.
   Here are some screenshots showing the results:

    

   

2. Vista Theme:
   Use this theme or alternately, right click on desktop->Properties->Appearance->Windows & Buttons (set to Win XP style) and Color Scheme to Silver. (I did this and it looks better than the theme. Get some good Vista wallpapers for the background.) Here
   Original Theme
3. Stardock Logon Studio (works for Vista too):
   As the name says it will change the default Logon of Windows XP to look like Vista.
   Price: Free
   Size: 1.82MB
   Download
   Download Page
   Info Now once downloaded and installed use this Logon Screen as it is almost similar to the one with vista or goto the Info site and then to Skins and choose some very good ones(I chose the CIA one):
   Download this logon.
4. Vista Drive Status Icons:
   Now the one feature that I like about Vista is that when you open My Computer you get your hard drives with a status bar below the drive which tells you how much of the drive is filled … now this package does the almost the same … the results are pretty close
   Download
5. Bootskin(works for Vista too):
   Now to get the boot screen that Vista has … download this software:
   Price: Free
   BootSkin
   Download This Boot screen Again I choose the CIA logo.
6. Vista Sidebar:There are 2 ways of getting thisMethod 1:1. Download the sidebar, and decompress it (it’s a RAR file).
   2. Copy the decompressed folder into the Program Files directory (C:\Program Files\).
   3. Now go to the Users folder, and under your username create a new folder named Parts (C:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator in my case), and copy the files from C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar\Parts into this folder.
   4. Download this patch and put it in the Windows Sidebar folder mentioned above, then run the file named Patch (and do as it says).
   5. Next up, download this file decompress it and place it into the Windows Sidebar folder. This file is part of Internet Explorer 7, so if you have that beta, just get it from your own IE7 folder.
   6. Now just run the sidebar (C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe) and click the plus sign to load the widgets! Screenshots:
   
   Method 2: The Vista sidebar this also blends itself to the desktopObtain DesktopXDownload this widget here Screenshots:
   
   I personally prefer to use Yahoo widgets. unfortunately this also not being free u will have to find your own way of obtaining it
7. Flip 3d:
   Well one of the most time pass features of Vista that I enjoy is the Flip 3d … its brother for XP is:
   Download
   Info
8. Download the Visual Task Tips (it mimics the the screen preview when you place your mouse over a minimised program) from here.
   
9. Download the Aero Internet Explorer, from here
10. Download the Vista Start Menu Emulator. Search it on Google by putting “Vista Start Menu Emulator” into the search bar. This will require .NET Framework 2.0.5474 or higher. Once downloaded and unzipped, move the Orb button over the Start Button.
11. To mimic the search download Google Desktop seach (recommended) or Windows Desktop Search 3.0 for Windows XP and Add-in for Files on Microsoft Networks
12. To mimic Alt-Tab Preview in addition to the icon of the application window you are switching to, you see a preview of the page. download

Just follow the above steps and you should be able to transform your XP to Vista