Guides - DeSpize - Wallpapers - Backgrounds - Skins - Icons - Themes - XP - Vista - Best Spices for Your Desktop!

Here is a list of most popular wallpaper groups at Flickr.

Wallpaper and Backgrounds

This group features all kinds of wallpapers, from photographic to abstract.

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You are not satisfied with the themes for XP and Vista? Why not make your own theme then…

DeSpize gives you some links to get started with making themes.

Windows Vista

There is a beginner tutorial at JoeJoe available as PDF in English and German.
http://www.joejoe.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=10445

Windows XP

For the XP users, GFXCanvas has great and comprehensive guide.
http://www.gfxcanvas.com/home/Tutorials/p2000_articleid/2
http://www.gfxcanvas.com/home/Tutorials/p2000_articleid/3

If you know some tutorials related to making custom themes, please leave a link in the comment.

[OC]ModShop posted a little guide how to speed up IE. Here is excerpt from the guide:

If you visit a web page with lots of images (and supporting files like CSS styles and Javascript), then you can have a slower browsing experience. On average, your browser has to make more than 40 requests to the server before it can assemble the complete page. Requesting all the files you need two-at-a-time is going to be slower than requesting 10 files at a time, for example.

You can speed up Internet Explorer by tweaking hidden registry values, thereby enabling your browser to get more files in fewer chunks.

Rest of the guide

If you want to install new themes in Microsoft Windows Vista, you can download VistaGlazz and install it in your system. It will allow custom themes installation and transparency in maximized windows. VistaGlazz works in Premium, Business and Ultimate edition of Windows Vista, 32bit or 64bit. Please note that you must have administrator rights and AERO needs to be activated before installation of VistaGlazz.

VistaGlazz doesn’t work in Vista with SP1 installed.

Download VistaGlazz

Upon successful instalation, you can start browsing our Vista Themes section.

If you have some doubts how to use this little gem, you can go to official Usage Guide.

Lot of people ask where they can find applications and use skins and themes that are posted on DeSpize. So, we decided to list all applications with descriptions and download links.

Visual styles for Windows XP

The detailed guide is posted here.

WindowBlinds

WindowBlinds is a utility that allows Windows users to completely change the look and feel of the Windows interface by applying a new skin. It doesn’t alter any system files so it’s safe to install it even in Windows Vista.There are two versions of WindowBlinds, Shareware and Enhaced. Enhanced version costs 19.95$ at the time of writing this guide.

Download link

http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/downloads.asp (more…)

Many people send me emails how to install visual styles so I decided to write instruction for all of you. Visual styles can be installed only in WindowsXP!

First step

If you haven’t done already, download and apply Uxtheme Multi-patcher. Please, be careful and read all instructions of installer. If you can’t download from that site, try with to find it on Google.

Second step

Find and download visual style you like. Visual style is in 99% situations packed in .zip or .rar format. You can extract files with WindowsXP extraction tool or with WinZip or WinRAR. So, after download is finished, you need to unzip files from archive to your Windows/Resources/Themes folder. Important step is to create new folder with name of visual style and extract there archive. Then your new visual style can be selected through Control Panel>Display Properties>Appearance tab. (more…)