ViStart

The customization options provided by Windows are not enough for some users. Vista and 7 may be more flexible in this regard, but not everyone has the system resources necessary to run them. If you are tired of Windows XP's look, you can download ViStart and change it. You can use it to give your Start menu and taskbar that sleek look which you will find in later versions of Windows. The application is not designed only to give Windows XP a better look. You can also use it, in Vista and 7, to change the skins of the Start menu, Start button and taskbar.

The application is only 588 Kb large and it can be installed swiftly. There are only two stages to go through when launching the setup wizard. The operating systems it is compatible with include Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7.

When the installation is complete, ViStart will automatically change the Start menu's aspect and it will stay changed as long as the application is running as a system tray icon. The Start menu can be brought back to normal by simply closing the application. The setup file works as an .exe as well, which will launch the application if it is already installed. General settings can be accessed from a pop-up menu, after right clicking the system tray icon. Here you will find basic options like setting the application to launch automatically at system startup, choosing a default web browser and others.

If you are a Windows Vista/7 user, the initial changes to the Start menu will not be significant, but this is where the fun part starts. A rich collection of skins, created by independent users, can be found on the application's web site and you can download them for free. They come as setup files which will install and apply the skins automatically, but the main application must be closed before anything else. Besides Start menu skins, you can also download different Start buttons. This way you can replace that tiresome Start button with sleeker looking logos or other buttons depicting (for example) the eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings movie.

A lot of people avoid customization applications because they slow down the system. However, ViStart will not milk your computer for resources. The performance reduction will not be noticeable, so there will be no lag of any kind while running the application.