How to Make Windows XP look like a Mac

Macs come with a really pleasing look. The interface is so polished that pretty much every Windows user envy it. If you’re on a PC longing for a Mac but can’t afford it yet, here is some free software to make your Windows PC look like a Mac. Keep in mind, these visual enhancements require additional processing power. So if you have a slow system you would probably do better without them.

Docks

We’ve covered Windows desktop docks before. Desktop docks are just indispensable if you want to make your PC look like a Mac. Docks can be used to launch programs and could well replace your Windows taskbar.

Widgets

Widgets are little objects that lie on your screen and do tiny tasks such as fetching weather data, displaying system statistics, showing time, etc.

To mimic the OS X Dashboard, you can try the Yahoo! Widget Engine and get lots of widgets on to your desktop (check their widget gallery here). MakeUseOf has its own widget as well. Or you could get Google Desktop which doubles as a desktop search engine. The former is a bit cooler and slicker. Some more alternatives can be found in 6 widget platforms for your PC.

Tool Bar Icons

To decorate Windows Explorer with Mac-like toolbar icons, you can download and install Y’z Toolbar software from here. Then, get this skin for Y’z Toolbar. Windows Explorer icons now resemble that of a Mac.

Drop Shadow

Use Y’z Shadow to add drop shadow effects to Window borders. Y’z Shadow can also make menus transparent. You can, of course, specify the thickness of the shadow by using the parameters in the Y’z Shadow settings.

FlyakiteOSX

We’ve mentioned this before, and this is an all-in-one transformation pack that applies a lot of changes to the Windows shell. It adds plenty of eye-candy to make Windows look like a Mac. Boot Screen, Login Screen, Wallpapers, Screensavers, Sound effects are all altered to mimic a Mac Desktop. If you’re looking for an all-in-one pack, FlyakiteOSX is the way to go. Download here.

Firefox Themes

As Kaly pointed out in this post, there are quite a number of themes available for Firefox that make it look like Safari. Here’s the list: iFox Smooth, iFox Metal, Macfox II, Macfox II Graphite, Cobalt Firefox.

Or you can just download Safari for Windows from Apple’s website here.

Icons

Mac has an amazing set of visually pleasing icons that are really very pro-looking. You can grab the icons from here and here and set them as a default icons for some of your Windows apps.

Get iTunes

iTunes is the default music management software for the Mac. Although it’s quite heavy on system resources, it comes with a nice Mac-ish look. Plus it has a number of really cool third party addons. Download iTunes from here.

Let us know in the comments if you make use of any other Windows software to make Windows look like a Mac.

(By) Shankar Ganesh, a 16 year old Blogger and Freelance Writer from India. He writes about computers and software at Killer Tech Tips

If you found this article useful then please help us spread the word by Stumbling It.

If you like this article then subscribe to MakeUseOf feed and get latest articles delivered to your Feedreader. If you want to recieve latest articles in your email click here. It's FREE!