Yesterday, Microsoft released Windows 7 to crowds of adoring fans. Although similar to Vista, Windows 7 has a look and feel all its own, and Microsoft has set up a new Windows 7 Personalization Gallery, featuring themes, backgrounds and desktop gadgets you can add to your system to personalize it further.
That means that just because you’re using Windows 7, doesn’t mean it has to continue to look like Windows 7. Microsoft’s latest is a fine-looking OS, but because creating your own Windows 7 theme by customizing the background, the icons, and even your mouse pointers is so easy, you can make it look even better by customizing it to pay homage to anything you want — like, perhaps, Mac OS X.
Interested in making your own Windows 7/Mac OS X mashup theme? Just follow these instructions!
Pick your Wallpaper and Window Color
The first step in creating your theme is to find the right wallpaper. Since we’re going for a Mac feel, I decided to grab one of the wallpaper images form Mac OS X Snow Leopard. If you want something a little less on-the-nose, but with a distinct Apple style, there are literally hundreds of choices out there. This blog post has some gorgeous options.
To begin actually creating your theme, first right click on your desktop and choose “Personalization.” From here, you can modify an existing theme or create a new theme. After clicking on the “Desktop Background” button, you can choose an image from your library to use.
If you see an image on the web that is large enough for your desktop, you can right click on it in Internet Explorer (or Firefox) and choose “Set As Background” right from the Internet.
The Window color (which offers the option for transparency if your graphics card supports Aero) section can be any color of your choosing. Since I wanted to match the overall “feel” of Mac OS X, I chose a shade of white and enabled transparency.
Choosing your Icons and Pointers
To make your Windows desktop icons more Mac-like, you can alter the default desktop set directly in your theme. Click on the “Change Desktop Icons” item on the left hand side of the Personalization window.
You’ll see the default Windows 7 icons for My Computer, User, Network and Recycle Bin Empty and Recycle Bin Full. Click on any icon and press the “Change Icon” button and select an icon (in the *.ICO format) you want to use in its place.
There are a ton of places to get cool icons: Iconfactory, DeviantArt and Iconpaper all have a large selection of icons for Mac and Windows.
However, if you want to use the actual Mac OS X icons, as I did, you can download the Vista/Windows 7-ready versions from this DeviantArt user.
Once you’ve chosen the icons you want, it’s time to make your mouse pointers and hourglass animations look more like Mac OS X.
Select “Change Mouse Pointer” from the Personalization menu and bring up your default mouse pointer icons. Again, numerous sites across the web offer other options, but if you want to get that Mac OS X look, check out this set, which mimics Mac OS X pointers, including the color wheel.
Save Your Theme and Share With Others
Once you have your theme the way you like it, you can click on the “Save Theme” option and name your theme so that you can keep it around. You can always edit it later if you decide you want to tweak something.
If you want to share your theme with others, just right click on the theme in your theme list and choose “Save Theme for Sharing,” then choose a name for your theme. By default it will be stored in the My Documents folder.
Final Results
In under five minutes (once you choose your wallpaper and icons) you can make Windows 7 look something like this:
Yes, it’s not the most dramatic makeover, but in a very short amount of time, we’ve taken Windows 7 and given it enough subtle Mac-like touches that it will feel just a bit homier to Mac fans.
Of course, if you’re a little more adventurous and really want to transform Windows 7, you can check out this complete Mac OS X skin made for Windows 7! (Note that the skin was made for an older build of Windows 7 and may not work with newer versions out of the box — so, it’s definitely not for the faint of heart.)
What other places do you go to find wallpaper and icons? Share your favorites in the comments.
Reviews:
Firefox,
Internet Explorer,
deviantART
Tags: apple, desktop customization, mac, Windows 7, windows 7 themes
译文:
怎样为windows 7创造一个苹果主题
昨天，微软向期盼已久的粉丝们发布了新的windows 7操作系统。虽然与vista很相似，windows 7在视觉和感官上确是自成一体的。微软公司建立了一个新的windows 7个性图库用来展示主体，背景和桌面工具。将它们添加到系统中可以进一步个性化自己的系统。
这表示即使你正在使用windows 7操作系统，你的windows 7也可以与众不同。微软最新的产品是赏心悦目的，但由于其通过个性化背景、图标，甚至是鼠标指针可以制作自己的windows 7主题，操作十分简单，所以将它个性化你所欣赏的任何样子，像是苹果操作系统Mac OS X一样，那看上去更好。
想要制作自己的windows 7或Mac OS X 系列的混合主题吗？按说明做就好啦！
选择自己的墙纸和窗口颜色
制作个性主题的第一步是找到正确的墙纸。因为我们想要营造的是苹果界面的感觉，所以我决定从Mac OS X 雪豹系列中选择一张墙纸。如果你不想要典型的苹果壁纸，但仍想表现明显的苹果风格的话，这里至少有几百种选择。这个博客里有一些相当好的图片可供参考。
现在开始制作主题。首先右键点击桌面，选择“个性化”。在此可以更改现有主题或者创造新的主题。点击“桌面背景”选项，之后可以从自己的图库中选择图片来使用。
如果你在网上看到了一张图片与你的桌面大小相符，可以在IE 或火狐浏览器里右键点击它，选择“设为桌面背景”，直接从网上进行选择。
如果你的显卡支持Aero的话窗口颜色会有透明度的选项。窗口颜色可以更换成你所选的任何颜色。因为想要符合整体的Mac OS X的“感觉”，我选择了白色阴影和透明项。
选择自己的图标和指针
为了让你的windows桌面图标更像苹果桌面，可以直接在主题中改变缺省桌面设置。点击个性化窗口中左手边的“更改桌面图标”即可。
你将看到缺省的Windows 7图标，这些图标代表了“我的电脑”“用户”“网络”“回收站（空）”和“回收站（满）”。点击任意图标，按下“更改图标”键，选择一个自己想要的图标（图标文件格式是*.ICO）。
你可以在许多地方找到特色图标：一些软件和网页，比如Iconfactory, DeviantArt 和 Iconpaper都为苹果系统和微软系统提供了很多图标文件。
但是，如果你想使用真正的Mac OS X系列图标，如我所说，可以从DeviantArt user这个网站上下载vista或windows 7版本图标。
一旦选择了想要的图标，接下来就要制作自己的鼠标指针和沙漏动画文件了，这样看起来才更像Mac OS X系统。
点击“个性化”菜单中“更改鼠标指针”选项，选择你的缺省鼠标指针图标。网上很多网站也会提供其他的选择，但是如果想要拥有Mac OS X的效果，可以打开DeviantArt user网站中的此项。那里有许多模仿Mac OS X系统制作的指针，还包括色轮。
保存你的主题并与他人共享
一旦你制作出了自己中意的主题，可以点击“保存主题”选项，为你的主题命名，这样可以把它保存下来。如果之后你想对主题稍作改变，那么你可以在任何时候对其进行编辑。
如果你想和他人分享自己的主题，只需在主题列表中右键点击主题，选择“保存主题以共享”，然后为你的主题命名。那么主题会被自动保存在“我的文档”中。
最终效果
只要选择了墙纸和图表，5分钟之内，你就可以使windows 7看上去是这样的：
是，它不是最彻底的美化，但是在很短时间内，我们已经掌握了windows 7 并赋予了它足够的微妙的苹果风格感，使苹果迷们感到熟悉。
当然，如果你更具冒险精神，真的想要彻底改变windows 7，可以在这个专为windows 7制作的“完善Mac OS X系统皮肤”网站上进行浏览。请注意：皮肤只适用于一些较老的windows 7 build版，可能与一些不稳定的较新版本不兼容，所以，这个行为绝对不适合胆小人士。
还有哪些网站可以找到墙纸和图标呢？请在评论中分享你的收藏。
评论：
火狐，
IE浏览器，
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标签：苹果，桌面个性化，mac，Windows 7，Windows 7 主题
