HOWEVER, EVEN IF WIN98 IS STILL A POPULAR SYSTEM THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, MAYBE YOU WANT YOUR PC TO HAVE THE WINXP MENU INTERFACE EVEN THOUGH YOUR PC IS STILL USING AN OLDER VERSION OF WINDOWS.

Fortunately, you can use Stardock's WindowBlinds and ObjectBar to give windows a different look and feel. WindowBlinds and ObjectBar are "skins" programs that give Windows a different look. WindowBlinds and ObjectBar can be used with Win98, Win98SE, WinME, WinNT, Win2000, and WinXP. There is a definite market for products like WindowBlinds and ObjectBar. If you don't have WinXP, you can use WindowBlinds and ObjectBar to make your version of windows look just like WinXP. (Or you can make your version of windows look like a completely different operating system.) It seems to me that there are still a lot of people and businesses who are still using Win98, Win98SE, WinME, WinNT, or Win2000 since there are ads for WinXP upgrades in every PC store advertisement in newspapers and magazines that I may see. In addition to aforementioned InformationWeek report, another article from Websidestory, a globally-oriented internet statistics company, reports that "Microsoft Windows 98 still ranks as the No. 1 OS version among Web users worldwide, with nearly 37 percent of the market" in 2002 while WinXP has only 19.94 percent of the market -- and if you consider all of the other computers using Win95, WinME, WinNT, and Win2000, then you can see that the number of computers *NOT* using WinXP is even higher. Note that Microsoft will be coming out with yet another new version of windows code-named Longhorn for home and office users in 2005 to replace WinXP -- so WinXP will become yet another so-called "old" version of windows in the very near future.

So, the advertisements for WinXP upgrades and the internet statistics all tell me there are still a lot of PCs which have not been upgraded to WinXP despite the marketing hype which Microsoft may put out in the news. Despite these new versions of windows coming out it seems like every other year or so, PC users can still get by with the version of windows that they have right now instead of upgrading. If you are going to buy a new PC, then get the new windows that should come with the new PC. But if you have a spare licensed copy of windows that you can use on a PC that you may be building, then nobody should blame you for trying to save some money if you use a so called "old" but still perfectly good version of windows. So, there is a definite need for products like WindowBlinds and ObjectBar for those people who do not want to upgrade their version of windows but who want to "dress up" their windows to look like the latest version.

You and other windows users (including WinXP users) can even get a headstart on making windows look like the Longhorn-codenamed version of windows (click here and here) before that version of windows comes out. You can also click here to get Codename:Dashboard which is a free actual working Longhorn-Dashboard lookalike for the dashboard sidebar that is included in the yet-to-be-released Longhorn-codenamed version of Windows. Codename:Dashboard requires that Microsoft .NET be installed on your PC. With Codename:Dashboard, you can add various components to the dashboard sidebar including a Slide Show component to display the digital pictures and other images that you may have in a subdirectory on your harddrive. And you can add a Media Player component to the dashboard to play your MP3 music files or to play your MPEG2 or DIVX AVI video files in a display on the dashboard.¹ (Please see footnote 1 for a tip when using the Media Player component in Codename:Dashboard.)

Anyways, since I had a licensed CD of Win98SE to match up with the windows on this PC, then it was a lot cheaper to install WindowBlinds, ObjectBar, and Codename:Dashboard than to buy yet another licensed copy of Windows.

WindowBlinds can require a bit of tweaking to its settings to make it work happily with windows. If you are using Win98 / Win98SE / WinME, then you may want to turn off (uncheck) all of the boxes in the settings and maybe check the box for "Apply the skins colour scheme." This will make WindowBlinds skin the titlebar of each window and application in windows to give you the basic WinXP look-and-feel. Unfortunately, if WindowBlinds is set to skin everything in windows, then WindowBlinds can possibly take up an excessive amount of resources under Win98 / Win98SE / WinME and possibly cause windows to crash. Instead, you should turn off (uncheck) the settings and provide minimal WindowBlinds skinning. WindowBlinds will run faster with the minimal skinning. Then you can experiment with the settings to see what settings will work and will not conflict with your version of windows and with the software programs on your system. NOTE: Tweaking and diagnosing any conflicts between WindowBlinds and your system may be very tricky -- so you may want to be very patient and you may want to make a back up of your system if you somehow irreversibly mess up your system.

To skin the Start Menu Taskbar, you will need to use ObjectBar. WindowBlinds only skins the windows, panels, and applications in your version of windows. One tip that I would give regarding ObjectBar is to make a few setting changes under regular windows. Before running ObjectBar, in regular windows, click Start, Settings, Taskbar & Start Menu, uncheck the box for Always On Top, and check the box for Auto Hide.

The WinXP Luna theme should be included with WindowBlinds and also with ObjectBar. If not, then you can get those themes by clicking here (WindowBlinds luna themes)and here (ObjectBar luna themes).

Also, under regular windows, you may want to go into Display Properties and on the Appearance tab, you may want to play with the color settings to match whatever theme you may choose to use in WindowBlinds and ObjectBar. You can also click here and here for the WinXP icons. You may also want to get Desktop Architect to help you to directly install the WinXP icons in your non-XP version of windows.

You can also choose to only get ObjectBar *WITHOUT* Windowblinds by only using ObjectBar to make the Start Menu Taskbar look like WinXP while leaving the rest of windows looking like the same classic windows look-and-feel that you are used to while making the color scheme appearance in regular windows match whatever theme you may be using in ObjectBar. You may want to to only use ObjectBar *WITHOUT* Windowblinds if you find that your PC system is having too many memory problems and conflicts with WindowBlinds.

So, if you want to try out WindowBlinds and ObjectBar, then you can click here for a freeware version of WindowBlinds and you can click here for a freeware version of ObjectBar. The freeware versions can be used for unlimited periods of time, but there there is a nag screen at the start of each program. You can't disable the nag screens. The only way to get rid of the nag screens is to buy the enhanced versions of WindowBlinds and ObjectBar. You can click here to order the enhanced version of WindowBlinds and you can click here to order the enhanced version of ObjectBar -- both of which you can immediately download.

Happy PC-TV Watching!
Ruel