Skinning Windows
Since Microsoft Windows became dominant, people have increasingly seen the trend of every PC looking more or less the same. Not only has Windows been traditionally very restrictive in what you can do to personalize it, but there were few third party solutions to extend it.

However, in recent years there's been an explosion of third party programs designed to let people customize Windows. Now that many millions of users are comfortable with Windows, they're ready to move beyond the "Every color you want as long as it's black" Redmon design of it. The first step in that is customing the Windows GUI (graphical user interface) itself. This is known as "skinning". Where you think of the GUI of Windows as the "skin" of the OS. 

This guide is designed to explain and help you create your own visual styles for Microsoft Windows (Windows 98, ME, 2000, and Windows XP).  Skins that change the look and feel of the actual GUI are called "Visual styles".

This guide is broken up into 4 parts:

  • The Introduction
  • Skinning Basics
  • Tips and Tricks
  • Reference

Please feel free to visit the message boards on WinCustomize (www.wincustomize.com) for additional help OR visit Stardock's news server: news://news.stardock.com where there are WindowBlinds news groups.

This guide is designed for personal use for you to create skins for Windows that are applied via WindowBlinds or a licensed program.

and now..

In The Beginning...

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