One of the hottest buzz on the Internet today is about the upcoming Microsoft operating system, Windows 8 or Windows Next. There have been a lot of freeware released recently, that enable you to experience the new features of Windows 8 on your Windows 7. In this article, I’ll tell you how to customize Windows 7 to look like Windows 8 UI, which Microsoft show-cased recently.
Make Windows 7 look like Windows 8
Step 1: Patch system files to enable Custom Themes.
Step 2: Download Zetro VS 1.3 from Deviantart and extract the files to a folder.
Go to Theme folder > Zetro bottom taskbar > and copy Zetro and Zetro.theme and paste them to C:\Windows\Resources\Themes folder.
Step 4: Right-click on Desktop and click on Personalize.
You’ll find Zetro under the “Installed Themes” section to select the theme. Now your theme should be changed to resemble the Windows 8 theme.
Step 5: Now that we have applied the Windows 8 theme, we need to bring the Metro UI design to the Desktop. We are going to use a software called “RainMeter” and “Omnimo 4” RainMeter Skin.
- Download RainMeter.
- Download Omnimo 4.
Step 6: First, install RainMeter, once RainMeter is installed then we need to install Omnimo 4. Extract Omnimo 4 to a folder. Once you have extracted the files double-click Setup.rmskin to install the skin.
Step 7: Once it’s installed you’ll get a Welcome screen.
Go with the default values and click the Next arrow. Then you’ll be prompted to select the language.
Select the language and you’ll next be prompted to select your screen resolution.
Select the screen resolution and you’re done. It will apply the new Metro UI to your Desktop.
Step 8: The last step would be to change the Start button. You can find them under \Zetro pack by Pisa\Extras\Windows 7 Start Orb Changer folder of your theme that you extracted. You could use our Start Button Changer application to change the Start Orb. You can use this button:
Once you have made all those changes, reboot the system once to let the complete effects take place. Now your desktop would look similar to this image.
Additional tweaks:
- You could download Windows 8 boot screen from Deviantart. You could use Win7BootUpdater to change the Boot screen.
- Windows Media Player patch (Zune like) for Deviantart
- You could install Zune Player.
- Download and use the Windows 8 Clock Logon Screensaver for Windows 7.
- A Windows 8 like taskbar user tile for Windows 7 here. This User Tile pulls your entire online persona into one place and includes things like your Facebook and Windows Live Messenger statuses, Twitter, Email, etc. Go get it here.
Well now your Windows 7 UI will almost resemble the Windows 8 UI, as we know today.
If you have any additional tweaks or apps, please do share it with us.
It is always a good idea to create a system restore point first before making any changes to your Windows.
Check out Ultimate Windows Customizer, which allows you to customize your Windows installation, including changing the Start Button, Logon Screen, Thumbnails, Taskbar, Explorer look, Windows Media Player and more! etc.
How to get icons as shown in the Zetro UI screens…??
Rest all is working fine….
Nice Tutorial! Can you please add my app Pulmon (Optional) as a replacement for Omnimo. Its a start screen for Windows 7
downloadinformer.blogspot.com/2011/07/pulmon-windows-8-ui-widgets-in-windows.html
To: ShyamS@TWC
This is a great article! Love but it’ll be more appreciate if maybe you could also include steps HOWTO: uninstall or revert-back to original, previous state other than just using system restore. You might also include some technical review of the theme.
Again,
Thank you for the tutorial and more power to ‘TheWindowsClub’!
Hello Verum_est,
Create a System Restore point before you make any changes so you could revert it back to default settings.
The steps in this article won’t make changes permanently. For example changing the Start Orb it creates a backup of your original explorer.exe file. Then the theme you can choose the default theme to revert it back. Other software like RainMeter can be uninstalled. IMO the easiest way is to create a restore point and revert it back.
Hope this helps!
You need to install RainMeter and apply the skin mentioned in Step 5
Alternatively you could just wait for Windows 8 to be released whiich would save you messing with files you shouldnt be messing with.
I like customizing my system but some of these ‘Make it Look Like’ apps are just plain silly I mean the noobs are going to struggle to get their systems back to normal as there is no proper tutorial to explain this to them.
Did that…
i followed all instruction step by step…
but after installing Ominmo.. i only have the Windows8 or WP7 style layer on my desktop…!
Icon around the pc have not change…!
The icons in the task bar are customized ones. You could download it from here http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=§ion=&global=1&q=zune+icons#/d2noo9b
Is there any way to Uninstall it? I’ve installed and had some problems with it.
Windows 8 isn’t free you know, nor should you have thought it would be one year ago. Besides, a system restore point could reverse all of it, and that isn’t hard to do.
very good tutorial! i like it so much
Hi, Shyam
How I suppose to use those icons? Replace them one by one after installing software?
What if you don’t have system restore?
Plz reply
All Windows have that feature. If you have disabled it, turn it back on, create a system restore point and then make changes to your system.