Steps

1. Remove all unused shortcuts and icons. Right click the desktop and go to “Arrange desktop icons by” and uncheck “Show desktop icons”. You should now have a completely clean desktop. Don’t be afraid. You can still access the My Computer, My Documents, and Recycle Bin standbys from Windows Explorer.
2. Install RKLauncher (Even though Star Dock is beter coz you can get a mac OS X Leopard v . 10 theme). RKLauncher (also called RKDock) is a free Windows version of the animated Mac taskbar, or “dock.” You can download it here. RKLauncher comes with a pretty cool theme. If you want to make your dock look exactly like a Mac though, try RealDock for RKLaucher, a great clone of the Mac Dock appearance. RKLauncher’s official build hasn’t been updated lately, so if you would like something more up-to-date, grab a nightly build from Aqua-Soft. The farther down you go, the newer the build. Another good dock program is ObjectDock by Stardock, you can skin it to be anything you want and it does the animations and everything.
3. Hide the taskbar. It doesn’t make sense to have both ObjectDock/RKDock and the Windows taskbar. Right click a blank space in ObjectDock, go to the settings tab, select behavior then on the box with check marks select “Hide the Windows Taskbar,” and hit OK. RKLauncher should work similarly. This makes the taskbar disappear. You can also just move the taskbar to the front of the screen.
4. Add Widgets. Widgets are desktop toys to entertain and to inform. Think of them like things you’d put on a real desk: a picture frame, a newspaper to a dancing hula girl! But they’re on your PC desktop, not your real desk. You’ll get it once you see it. They could be a fun addition to your boring computer. Download free widgets from the Yahoo Widgets page. You’ll download a widget machine called Yahoo! Widget Engine, which comes with widgets like a picture frame, analog clock, calendar, and weather display. You can get more widgets like RSS news feeds and a dancing hula girl from the widgets gallery. Yahoo! has also released an engine that can help you make your own widgets and is available here. Kludget Engine is also an option for running widgets. It allows you to run Apple’s Dashboard widgets on Windows and Linux. It is free and open sourced. Available here
5. Get Safari for Windows Just Get the new Safari 4, for Windows here, or get Firefox here. You can skin Firefox to look like Safari.
6. Change your wallpaper to look like Mac OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard. Or you can get a high resolution wallpaper here which won’t make your computer mimic a mac desktop but will add a sense of style and a unique touch.
7. Install your Expose from docs.kr. With this program (screen shot shows the ‘Windows Vista Flip’ move) you can set your Windows to spread out at the stroke of a key! A free download!
8. Move your buttons. ShellWM is a “titlebar-only” shell replacer. It lets you have the maximize, minimize and close buttons on the left for free. You’ll want to download this theme.
9. Change your mouse pointers. For the full effect, download a new set of mouse pointers. Save these to your computer (preferably in C:\WINDOWS\Cursors). It may be a good idea to make a folder within this for easier setup.) To setup these cursors, choose Mouse from the Control Panel, click the Pointers tab, and set your new pointers appropriately. For a the best OS pointer, use FLyakiteOS. If you don’t feel like changing cursors manually, you can install them all with a simple Mac OS X Mouse Cursors Installer
10. Keep tweaking and playing. Try customizing all of the applications you downloaded. Whatever suits you!

Tips

• If RKLauncher doesn’t work well, an alternative to try are RocketDock. Rocketdock is updated more often, and has more themes to choose from.
• You can also use the Mac OS X Install DVD
  • If you have a recent Mac OS X Install DVD (2005 and newer) that uses an x86 architecture, you can install OS X directly on your computer using InsanelyMac, which will circumvent the hardware detection used by the OS X install disc.
  • If you have an older Mac OS X Install DVD (2004 and older) that uses a PowerPC architecture, you can emulate PowerPC’s architecture using PearPC. PearPC is a tool which will allow you to run Mac OS X in an x86 environment, without putting in any effort. The emulation method is much slower than the method using InsanelyMac above.
  • Do not resort to using OS X unless you are aware of the legal action Apple can take if they know you are using that software.
• Since installing Mac OS X on a PC is illegal, you could also try installing Linux (Ubuntu Linux is the most popular linux out there) on your PC. Since Linux is fully constumizable you can use this guide to make it look like OS X.
• For the simplest way, install this patch. It lets you access Windows XPs built in skinner. Then go to customize.org and download all the Window’s themes you want. This is a great Mac OS X style theme.
• If you have enough money, an easier way would always be just to buy your own Mac, of course.
  • If you want to bootscreen, sound scheme and whatever, you should try flyakite OS X.

Change Program Icons

1. Change My Computer or The Recycle Bin that are ‘built-in’ to Windows.
2. Right-click on Desktop/Properties/Effects/
3. Highlight Icon/Change and Icon/Browse/Local Disk
4. Open (C:)/WINNT/System 32/Progman. Note that the filename is Progman.
5. Change the icons using this program.

Change Icons for File Types

1. Use this method to change all the icons associated with a given file type, like all NotePad documents, for example. Changing one file icon generally changes all of that type.
2. Open My Computer/Open tools/Open folder options
3. Click File Types
4. Highlight the file-type icon you wish to change.
5. Click Advanced at the bottom right of the screen.
6. Change the icon.
7. Use one of the4 shown icons or click Browse to go to Local Disk (C:)/WINNT/ System 32/Progman/
8. Highlight the icon.
9. Click OK.

note: You might not be able to edit some files types like folders.

Change Shortcut Icons

1. You cannot properly change individual icons on the Desktop without editing the Registry, but you can change shortcut icons.
2. Create a folder on the Desktop.
3. Name the folder Shortcuts.
4. Put all the Desktop files you want to change the icons for into this folder.
5. Right-click on each of these files.
6. Choose Send to Desktop or Create Shortcut.
7. Right-click the new shortcut icon on the Desktop.
8. Select Properties/Change icon or
9. Browse to Browse/Progman.

Remove ShortCut Arrows from Shortcut Icons

1. Remove the little arrows Windows adds to shortcut Desktop icons with Tweak UI a venerable Windows Program.
2. Download the program from “TweakUI”
3. Run it and go to the Explorer.
4. Navigate to the shortcut tab.
5. Click overlay.
6. Select None to remove the shortcut arrows from your Desktop.

Remove ShortCut Arrows from Shortcut Icons (Alternate Method)

1. To remove those annoying arrows without downloading any software, open the registry editor. Start -> Run -> type “regedit”
2. In Windows XP, navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile, and delete the IsShortcut value.
3. In Windows 98, navigate to [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{63B51F81-C868-11D0-999C-00C04FD655E1}\InProcServer32] and delete the current value Default.
4. For some Windows 98 computers, as well as Windows 95, navigate to both [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile], [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\piffile] and [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\InternetShortcut] and deleting both IsShortcut values will work.

Create your own Icons

1. Create a Desktop folder and name it Icons or a name of your choice.
2. Download Icons and images from the web into this folder.
3. Select an icon or image.
4. Right-click for the drop-down menu.
5. Select Save Image As

Create Icons with Irfanview

1. Create your own icons or icon files form images and more by using a third party utility. IrFanview is an excellent example.
2. Download the program “Irfanview”.
3. Place the program in the Icon folder your created above. Create a new folder named Icons if you do not already have one.
4. Open any icon or image file, including an image you may have created yourself in a paint program.
5. Insure the image is square.
   1. Square the image by choosing Image->Resize.
   2. Select Resample.
   3. Select a size, either 16 or 32 pixels.
   4. Click OK.
6. Insure the correct color depth
   1. Open the image again
   2. Click Decrease Color Depth
   3. Select the number of colors.
   4. Click OK.
7. Save image where you want, but select ICO (Windows Icon) file type.
8. If you select Save Trasparent Color, you can select the invisible image color, so its background look transparant and look the same as your desktop.

Set the Icon File Association

1. Open Options->Set File Associations.
2. Select ico.
3. Click OK.
4. Save the file:
   1. Select File->Save As
   2. Select Binary Encoding.
   3. Select Save Transparent Color
   4. Select Desktop/Icon Folder as the save location.
   5. Name the file Deskcon, for reference.

Fill and Color your Icon with IconEdit32

1. Choose an icon editor, a good one if IconEdit32.
2. Download the software “IconEdit32″
3. Open IconEdit32.
4. Click the 16 or 32 color box on the right side.
5. Open Deskcon that you created with the last program.
   • A small sample of the icon is shown at the right to make selection easier.
6. To make an icon transparent, click transparent.
7. To change colors, click Change colors.
8. Select Save As to your Desktop icon folder when you are done making edits.

Change the Icon Description

1. Click on the icon and click Properties.
2. Go to the Shortcut tab.
3. Type in your new description in the space for the Comment
4. Click Apply.
5. Click OK.
6. When you put your mouse over the shortcut, it will now read your description. (This may not work with all shortcuts.)

Tips

• Some qualifiers concerning Edit32: Your image must be square. It must have an .ICO file extension. It must be either 16 or 32 pixels. It can use up to 252 colors..

Steps

1. Create your icon, or find one online. A good size is 34 pixels square.
2. Open Notepad to create your Autorun file.
3. Type [AutoRun] in the first line and type “MSCONFIG” in the Run field.
4. Name your drive in the second line: label=Name
5. Specify your icon in the third line: ICON=your-icon-file.ico. If you wanted to call your drive “My USB Drive” with an icon named “myusbdrive.ico”, your code would look like this:
   [AutoRun]
   label=My USB Drive
   ICON=myusbdrive.ico
6. Click File, then Save As. Change the file type to “All” and name it AUTORUN.inf

N.B [.inf] ending must be in capitals or else the file will just be a normal .txt file and so it will not work.

1. Ensure that both your AUTORUN.inf and .ico files are in the ROOT of your removable drive, instead of a folder.

Tips

• This also works on internal hard drives, cd-rs, and any other drives that support Autorun.
• This will not work on a drive where Autorun is turned off.
• You will need to remove the drive, then plug it back in to see the changes.
• This is a great way to get past the “11 Character Drive Name” restriction.
• If the AUTORUN.inf and icon files are an eyesore, you can hide them (right click, click Properties, check the “Hidden” box).

Warnings

• Make sure you save the autorun file as .inf instead of the default .txt.
• Ensure that the icon is saved in the root of the drive, with the autorun file.
• This does not work on floppy drives, because they have no Autorun feature.