Do you know what I hate most about Windows XP? It's look. It's painful combination of blue and green. So one of the first thing I do after every Windows install is patch the Uxtheme file so that I can apply a visual style of my choice. I hope you are not using the default theme, are you?
The following is a list of some of the choicest visual styles that can give Windows XP a total makeover. Pick any!
Note: This list contains only shell styles that can be applied directly by patching Uxtheme or through StyleXP. No Window Blinds skins here.
Also see
Another 25 beautiful Windows XP themes (A fresh new collection)
25 beautiful Windows Vista themes (For Windows Vista users)
32 gorgeous and unique Windows 7 themes
25 beautiful icon sets for Windows
21 most beautiful mouse cursors for Windows
Watercolor Arrow - This theme looks so cool with a light colored taskbar, blue menu and funny hand-drawn type icons.



Wood Visual Styles - Transforms everything to wood! This theme is tested in Windows XP SP2. A few people reported problems with SP3. (This theme is no longer available. Sorry.)


Kupo XP 2.0 - A very minimalistic design available in 5 colors.

 

Luder -  Another minimalistic theme with a clean green look.

 

Aurum VS 1.1 - A bit of Vista's Aurora look.

 

Delta VS - A silver gray theme with mild colors.

 

DUO - A mixture of Vista and Mac.

 

Ubuntu XP - This is the closest Windows XP can get to Ubuntu! Brilliantly done.

 

Simplebox - This time it's Fedora. (This theme is no longer available)


Clearlooks Gummy - This theme pack gives a "Gnome" look to Windows XP. Available in 14 different colors!

 

Cadoo Visual Style 1.0 - A smooth whitish theme that gives a great contrast to any icon set.

 


animus -  A Mac like blue and white theme that works great with Mac icon set.



OSX Tiger V - Give Windows the Mac look. Very nicely done.



Leopard X - Another Mac theme with a slightly darker look.



VistaPerfection X4 - One of the best looking Vista theme for Windows XP.



Dream LH 1.0 - Another theme with the Vista look, but darkish and black  explorer window and task panel.



EX2008 Visual Style - A darkish theme with a tinge of green. Very minimalistic.



SlanXP 2.0 - Another dark theme for Windows XP.



GAIA - A very simple yet elegant theme with mild colors.



Greenius.VS - Another beautiful green theme. (Green seems to be the preferred color for designers)


P.S: This is how to install the themes:

1. Download and install Uxtheme patcher. During install a message will be displayed that important Windows file are being replaced and will ask you to insert the windows CD to fix it. Just ignore and click "continue"

2. Download the theme pack and copy the folder containing .msstyles and shellstyle.dll (this is inside another folder) to C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes\
3. After this is done, right-click on desktop and click Properties. Now click on the Appearance tab. Under Windows and Buttons you will find the list of all the themes you installed. Select one from the list and click Apply.
Sometimes, the downloaded pack contains additional utilites like Styler and Rocketdock etc to bring other changes to Windows. It's up to you whether you want to install the additional stuff. You can visit the original page of the theme author for more instruction on how to use those.

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If you have several Windows computers at home or office, either connected in a network or running standalone, it makes little sense to enable Windows Updates on all of them. All that is required is one computer to download the updates and the same can be installed on all the machines. This saves bandwidth cost. Having the updates in hand also makes it possible to integrate them with Windows installation source using popular tools such as nLite, or automating their installation using scripts.
Here are three ways to download Windows and Microsoft Office updates.

AutoPatcher

Does AutoPatcher ring any bells to you? It was a very popular alternative to Microsoft Update that allowed users to install software patches, service packs and other updates for certain Microsoft Windows systems. Then in 2007 Microsoft shutdown the project over concerns that the update files could be tampered with since the program stores them in their own server rather than download them from Microsoft’s servers. Following this AutoPatcher was updated. The new AutoPatcher now downloads updates directly from Microsoft.

First download the AutoPatcher from the developer's website, extract the contents and run apup.exe. Select, AutoPatcher Engine – the core component – and the operating system or MS Office package for which you want to download the updates. Click Next and allow the program to download the chosen components from Microsoft’s servers.
The tool downloads and store all the updates required in the same file structure used in previous AutoPatcher release. Once the download is completed, run AutoPatcher.exe. After this everything remains as before.
AutoPatcher currently exists for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 and some server equivalents (Windows 2003 and 2008), Office XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007.

Windows Updates Downloader

Windows Updates Downloader allows you to download all of the current Windows Updates using a simple interface. Unlike AutoPatcher, it will only download the updates. You’re still left with the task of installing them individually.
Before you can run Windows Updates Downloader, you have to download an update list from this page. The Update Lists (ULs) contain the necessary list of updates for each of the versions of Windows. You will also find ULs for other software such as Office and Exchange. Download the UL file and save it in the same folder as the Windows Updates Downloader program. Double click on the downloaded UL to install it.
After this, run Windows Updates Downloader and choose from the list the updates you wish to download. It is possible to download and install multiple Update Lists for multiple version of Windows. The correct version of Windows or Office software can then be selected from a drop down menu.
Supported versions are: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 2000 Professional, 2003 Server, Office 2003 and Exchange Server 2003. 64-bit updates are available for Windows XP, Vista, and 7.

WSUS Offline Update

This is our third and last offline updates installer. Download the archived package and extract the contents. Run UpdateGenerator.exe and you will presented with this interface.
Now you can choose which version of Windows or Microsoft Office you want updates of. Supported versions include Windows XP, Vista, 7, 2003 server, 2008 server and 2008 RC2. Both 32 bit and 64 bit versions are supported. WSUS Offline Update can also download Microsoft Security Essential, and Widnows Defender definition files.
Once WSUS Offline Update has downloaded all updates, on the target computer, start UpdateInstaller.exe and select update installation options. The program can optionally prepare an ISO image of the downloaded updates for archival and easy transfer from one computer to another.
Know any other offline installation method?

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