Vista Customization Pack V3
Ok so you've choosen the easiest way of changing the look of Windows. There are many shell packs out there on the internet, so which make you windows look like a different operating system, like the one I'm going to use for this tutorial, and others that change your windows into something origanal. The packs are very easy to obtain, there are a few links at the end of this part of the tutorial where you can find some of them.
For this tutorial we are going to use the shell pack created by Masterhack, Aero and JoeJoe called Vista Customization Pack V3. It is one of the best out there on the internet, and I would reccomend it to anybody that wishes to make windows look like vista. Please note that you can only use this pack on Windows XP SP2 (All languages). So if you want to use this pack you need to make sure you have Windows XP SP2. To do this is quite simple, you can tell straight away if you have Windows XP by looking at your taskbar.
Compare the taskbar at the bottom of your screen to these images.
This is the Windows 98 Taskbar, unfortunately if your task bar looks like this then you cannot use this shell pack. If however it looks like this but is much lighter you may be in luck, and have only turned off the XP theme.
This is the Windows XP Taskbar, if your taskbar looks like this then you definatly have Windows XP, all you need to do now is make sure that you have SP2 pack installed.
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This is the Windows XP Media Center Edition Taskbar, if you task bar looks like this then you should be able to use the theme pack, although I'm not 100% sure, as I haven't got it to test it on. Please email me results!
Right so if you have the correct version of windows all you need to do now is check you have SP2 Pack installed. This is quite easy to do, all you need to do is right click "My Computer", this is in your start menu. Left click the start menu, then on the right handside right click "My Computer, about the third or forth icon down. Now select properties at the bottom.
Okay now a new windows will open up and it will display the following information System, Registered To and Computer. We're looking at the System part. Your looking for it to say Service Pack 2.
If service pack to is not displayed then you need to download it from http://update.microsoft.com. You may need to download a few updates before it shows up but once it does download it and then continue with the tutorial. Don't forget to bookmark it though just press Crtl+B on the keyboard.
