Quick Tips: Make Windows Vista look like XP Video

Quick Tips: Make Windows Vista look like XP Video Transcript

>> The New Windows Vista is here. Sure it's pretty isn't it? Not if you're like me, you may not be all in to looks, you're deeper than that. You want familiarity. You got used to where things were in the old Windows. The old ways are best sometimes. I'm Tom Merritt, Editor from CNET.com and I'm gonna give you some Quick Tips on how to make Windows Vista look and act more like XP or even '98, but not 3.1. Let's start with the desktop. Right click and choose "Personalize." Click on Windows Color and Appearance. You can select Windows Standard to get out of the new look or even Windows Classic to really roll back the time machine. Press "OK" and wait for the changes to take effect. As you can see, this also changes the taskbar and start menu icons. Next, the Desktop Background. Pictures are nice. They say a thousand words or whatever, but to save a few processing cycles, let's change it to a solid color. You can go with old school Windows Blue. I like black personally. Press "OK." On to the mouse pointers, Vista has some sleek rotating, glowing blue awe something, but I miss the old hour glass. Choose Mouse Pointers. In the dropdown menu under Scheme you can choose Window Standard and get that Windows 286 look. Press "OK." Now, another thing about Vista, has no icons on the desktop, virtually, none anyway. Some people like that, it's simpler, but I want to have a few more than just the Recycle bin. Go to the upper left of the personalization screen under Tasks and click change desktop icons. Check any of the other options under desktop icons you'd like to have on your desktop. I like having the Documents folder and the Computer icon. Finally, a couple more tweaks to the Start menu and Taskbar. Right click right next to the start button, and choose "Properties," select the Start menu tab, choose Classic Start menu and now we have a Windows Vista machine that looks like it came from the last century. But you know what, these are on the graphics card and a lot more familiar to use. You can look for other settings to switch to Classic View and other places in Vista like the Control panel. That's it for this Quick Tip. I'm Tom Merritt for CNET.com see you later.