Taking my appearance to XP

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Guest

Hi,

Using Win98 now moving to XP pro.

I want to take everything about the way my computer "appears" with me. ie: I
want to take my background, screensaver, pointers, sounds, wallpaper, even
the colors of my windows and borders (the colors are customs colors I
created).

How do I do this? Is it possible? or does XP not recognize Win98se settings?

Thanks
 
Richard said:
Hi,

Using Win98 now moving to XP pro.

I want to take everything about the way my computer "appears" with me. ie: I
want to take my background, screensaver, pointers, sounds, wallpaper, even
the colors of my windows and borders (the colors are customs colors I
created).

How do I do this? Is it possible? or does XP not recognize Win98se settings?

Thanks
Click to expand...
Check help and support or google for Files and Setting Transfer Wizard.
Here's a pretty good explanation:
http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/itu/docs/migwiz98.pdf

Some setting will may not transfer if XP doesn't have a comparable setting.

gls858
 
Hi,

Using Win98 now moving to XP pro.

I want to take everything about the way my computer "appears" with me. ie: I
want to take my background, screensaver, pointers, sounds, wallpaper, even
the colors of my windows and borders (the colors are customs colors I
created).

How do I do this? Is it possible? or does XP not recognize Win98se settings?

Thanks
Click to expand...

XP uses the Windows XP theme by default. To get a Win98 look and feel, you
would change the theme to Windows Classic.

Wallpaper, pointers and sounds all have corresponding files. Make copies of
those in case you do not find comparable files in XP. You can integrate
them into the various windows folders or just create a folder to hold these
transferred files. Setting these up in XP would be a simple matter of
opening the corresponding control panel and selecting from the copied
files.

Screensaver: Some Win98 screensavers work in XP and some don't. If yours is
a third party screensaver, check with their tech support to see if they
recommend using it with WinXP or have an XP version available.

Customized colors: When using Classic in XP, most of the color "schemes"
that were in Win98 are still available. But for customized colors, you'll
want to record the numbers on your Win98 setup for each color. You can look
up a color in the Windows color picker and write these numbers down. Then
use those numbers with the color picker in WinXP to recreate them.
 
Hi Sharon,

Sounds good, if I can take the colors - at the very least, I can deal with
rebiulding the rest of my desktop. One question though, I have no idea where
to find the "Window's color picker", or where to look in my settings to find
the colors' numbers.

Sorry to ask such a simple question.

Thanks again for your response.
 
Hi Sharon,

Sounds good, if I can take the colors - at the very least, I can deal with
rebiulding the rest of my desktop. One question though, I have no idea where
to find the "Window's color picker", or where to look in my settings to find
the colors' numbers.

Sorry to ask such a simple question.

Thanks again for your response.
Click to expand...

Hi, Richard and you're welcome.

When you on the page in Display properties where you can adjust the colors
of individual components, there is a section labelled "Item:" Example of
items: 3D objects, active title bar, active window border and so on. Select
an item so that its color is displayed on the Color "button." Click the
button and the default color selections show up along with an "other"
choice (may be "custom" in Win98). When you click on "other" the color
picker window shows up. A more familiar term you might have heard for this
window would be "palette."

There are values shown for Hue, Saturation, Luminosity. Another set for
Red, Green Blue. Those numbers are the digital description of the current
color. Plug those into any program with a color palette and the color will
duplicated.

You'll want the numbers for any "item" in the drop down list that has a
custom color assigned to it. Use them in XP to recreate/duplicate the
colors for the various items.
 
Hi Sharon,

Found it! Thanks! I got the numbers, and understand what I need to do once I
get to XP.

I hope I like XPpro, I have waited a long time to move from Win98 and have
been happy with its stability over tha last few years. I hope XP isn't
resources top heavy either.

Thanks again, I am almost ready to go, just got to get my OE questions
resolved and I can reformat.

Thanks again, your help is very much appreciated!!!! It means very much to
me to have the comfort of my familiar desktop in my new home. :-)

Cheers, Richard
 
Hi Sharon,

I am on XPpro now. I was able to finally get it installed, but had numerous
hangs during the installation which was trying to say the least.

Ok, so I was able to make my computer look the way it used to and all was
great. However, when I restarted the computer it wasn't all there. I did save
the theme on the new PC. However, I think that when I saved the theme it did
not pull the files off the cd. So... I guess what I need to know is where do
I install the folder that has all the data for my theme, the folder currently
on my cd? Is there a specific place to put it that Windows needs it to be to
find it? or just in any folder on the computer?

The colors are perfect by the way, exactly as they were before! Once I get
this little hiccup figured out it will be the same.

Cheers, Richard
 
Hi Sharon,

I am on XPpro now. I was able to finally get it installed, but had numerous
hangs during the installation which was trying to say the least.

Ok, so I was able to make my computer look the way it used to and all was
great. However, when I restarted the computer it wasn't all there. I did save
the theme on the new PC. However, I think that when I saved the theme it did
not pull the files off the cd. So... I guess what I need to know is where do
I install the folder that has all the data for my theme, the folder currently
on my cd? Is there a specific place to put it that Windows needs it to be to
find it? or just in any folder on the computer?

The colors are perfect by the way, exactly as they were before! Once I get
this little hiccup figured out it will be the same.

Cheers, Richard
Click to expand...

I'm glad to hear your custom colors made it to the new setup. May want to
save that list of numbers just in case you ever need to reset them.

The management of themes is a little different in XP than Win98. If Win98
with theme support installed is upgraded to XP, the existing themes live
through the transition. If on the other hand, you do a clean install - the
Win98 style themes are gone and there's no way to retrofit a saved Win98
theme back into Windows. The theme can be manually recreated though.

Easiest is probably to track down all the files for the theme: wallpaper,
cursors, sounds, etc. Place them into a single folder on the XP machine.
Then using the various control panel icons (Mouse> Cursors, Sound> Events
and so on), navigate to your folder to select the files.

If you prefer to use the default Windows locations for these items
Wallpaper: Place a copy into My Pictures or the Windows folder.
Cursors: \Windows\Cursors
Sounds: \Windows\Media\

Hope this helps,
 
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