Author Topic: Aston Skin (Read 1122 times)

.:F3ar0n:. · « **on:** May 30, 2006, 10:55:12 AM »

As most of you most likely know, I've been messing around alot with new skins and such to mask over boring xp gui. I posted about vista transform a little while ago, which is really nice and works great for me (though most ppl won't touch it cause it may cause xp to screw up after it overwrites some valuable xp files..no issues with me however)

So anyways, I was checking online and doing some random searching when i found this neat little app called aston. It pretty much masks over everthing in xp. Only 2 major complaints with it so far. One is that the start menu doesn't show all the icons that I actually had before. i'm thinking what happened is that it pulls the icons only in my profile and not all users, which would explain the problem. Other thing is that it takes a good bit to get used to and configure to how you like it. It originally comes out with masking over so you have no desktop icons whatsoever..You end up having to take a good 20 min to config everything, but it works out in the end. The desktop seems to be a little buggy yet (sluggish at times) but overall it's a pretty neat app. It doesn't mess with windows files so feel free to check it out if you havn't already. Gives xp a nice gui interface. i've pretty much sucessfully changed xp completly now with new icons, boot screens and gui interface. anyways, just another neat find...

.:F3ar0n:. · « **Reply #1 on:** May 30, 2006, 11:00:01 AM »

And Just a Few More Screens for Ya To Look At...Just Because

Pride · « **Reply #2 on:** May 30, 2006, 12:37:00 PM »

Very Nice!

_!Rathe!_ · « **Reply #3 on:** May 30, 2006, 12:42:59 PM »

have you ever tried StyleXP by tgpsoft?? I have used it on my system since I got XP and it will skin most things and it has very few issues with XP. It may not have quite the capabilities of Aston but it works nice just the same.

The Shoctor · « **Reply #4 on:** May 30, 2006, 12:51:43 PM »

I have always found customizing Aston a PITA! Kudos to you for deeling with it.

.:F3ar0n:. · « **Reply #5 on:** May 30, 2006, 08:39:55 PM »

Yes sir...It tiss a pain...but if your willing to take the time...it works out better I feel than other skin programs.

I have tried style xp before, along with windows blinds...but aston seems to be the best as far as being almost complety costomizable and looking the best. I'm hoping I can find some app plugins to be able to do more customizing like widget styles. Havn't found much though... a note to the wise however, the extra themes you can download are truely a pain. I ended up installing one and it screwed up the start menu really bad. It looked ok but nothing flowed together. And then of course I couldn't go back to the old style for some reason. Anyways, be picky about extra themes you download and install.

It def takes a bit to get used to everything and being able to monuver around the new desktop gui (a lot more right clicking unless you disable the single click opening options like in most linux kde's)

If anyone has more suggestions or comes across something new, let me know. Always interested in trying new stuff. Think i'm gonna stick with aston though...def a nice skin once you get used to it (havn't had any issues with running games or anything as well...which I know happens sometimes when you install other skins for xp...messes up launches and such)

One final thing that I found very nice...the tabs on the bottoms showing what windows you have...offer a screen shot...so you can see what each thing is you have open. Along with that that you didn't see is that there's a auto hide menu to the left which allows quick acess to things like MS word/winamp and media players/ and shows your cpu cycles and loads...Pretty neat plugins all together

The Shoctor · « **Reply #6 on:** May 31, 2006, 10:17:37 AM »

I found after you get it all pretty and load all the plugins the argument about it being less resource intensive flys out the window and falls 20 stories on to the pavement.