Using Style XP to use non-Microsoft visual styles

Style XP, which is made by TGT Soft, was the first program that allowed Windows XP users to use non-Microsoft visual styles. Style XP and the free patch that TGT Soft also released are responsible for creating the visual style world on the Web. In this section, I am going to show you how to use this interesting app to install and use all of the thousands of visual styles available on the Web to transform the way Windows XP works.

Style XP 2.0 offers a lot of new features, such as icon packages, as well as logon and boot screen management. However, we are just going to focus on the visual style feature because that is what made this program famous. To get started, you will need to get a copy of Style XP 2.0 from TGT Soft. Visit www.tgtsoft.com/download.php to get a copy of Style XP. Once you are on their site, you will notice that they offer a couple of different download packages.
Make sure that you download Style XP 2.0 full install. They offer two different versions of this install, one for men and one for women. The two versions are the exact same version of Style XP except they have different visual styles included as a convenience if you have not already downloaded other visual styles. But because you have already downloaded some visual styles, you don't really have to worry about that.

Once you have Style XP 2.0 downloaded and installed, you are ready to get started using it. Follow these steps to get Style XP up and running:

1. Click the Start button and navigate to All Programs, then look at the top of your Start Menu when all programs are expanded by Windows Update. Expand TGT Soft to run Style XP.

2. When Style XP loads, click the Visual Styles button and Style XP will search your Theme folder for new visual styles.

3. You will see a list of all of the different visual styles on your computer in the middle of the window. A preview will be shown when you click the different visual style names.

4. Once you find the visual style that you want to use for the whole user interface, click the Apply Style to Current Theme button.

5. Your new visual style will now be applied. If you are satisfied with the new look, close Style XP and you are finished. If you're not satisfied, go back to Step 3 and start over.

As you can see, Style XP provides a very easy mechanism to change the current visual style that the Windows XP skinning engine is using. If you decide to download more visual styles, just install them and restart Style XP so that it can detect the new visual style. Then you will be able to change the visual style just as you have done previously.