A few months ago I wrote about a cool application for Windows XP which will emulate the Start Menu in Windows Vista. Then came along another Start Menu emulator from the creator of the Vista Transformation Pack, and this one has received a great update as the final step before Vista Transformation Pack 7 is released.
ViStart Beta 5 is the standalone Start Menu that runs in Windows XP, and perfectly replaces your Start Menu. It does all of the following:
- Puts your user image in the upper-right corner, and replaces that image with other graphics as you hover over the menu items on the right side.
- The Programs menu is actually contained within the Start Menu, instead of popping out like it does in XP. This is a big thing that skins alone were never able to emulate.
- Search! It doesn’t index your files, but the search bar does pull up matching program names as you type.
- System Tray icon that you can right-click on to shut-down, restart, or log-off of your computer.
The screenshot above is what ViStart looks like in the Vista Transformation Pack, and as you can see there are a lot of similarities to the Vista counterpart. While this program can be run as a standalone program, the font used is what’s specified in your system settings. So from my experience it doesn’t look as spectacular if you don’t have the Vista Transformation Pack installed.
Things are definitely looking up for the Vista Transformation Pack, and when version 7 gets released we’ll be sure to let you know. In the mean time you can play around with ViStart a little more:
ViStart Homepage (English Download Mirror for Beta 5)
Enjoyed the post? Subscribe to our feed to get a daily dose of CyberNet!
Tags: Freeware, Pre-Release, Software, Windows Vista, Windows XP
Related Posts:
- CyberNet Technology News Upgrade/Downtime
- Nite Ize Upgrades Your Old Flashlights
- Firefox 2 Users Prompted to Upgrade to Firefox 3
- Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor Available For Download
- WordPress 2.0 Has Officially Been Released
lame eye candy, very low performing, not worthwile.
Really? I didn’t think that it was “low performing”. Having the search box in there to search your programs is actually kind of useful for XP users.
No, ViStart isn’t “low performing” at all. It looks great, functions properly, and it just plain cool! It is totally worthwhile.
yeah? that first guys wrong. its totally worthwhile. it works perfect and that search menus a god send. also being able to change the skin with photoshop your self makes it great to match with any theme you might have.
Hi…i’m one of the guy using the vista tranformation pack for my pc(windows xp sp2)…It looks great to my pc and awesome!! But later some problem was occur…the vistart can’t run properly, everytime it run, one small window pop up and show that “Run-time error ‘481′: Invalid picture”…anyone know about this problem? How to fix it?
Have you tried reinstalling the app yet?
Yeah…I tried a few time to reinstall it…I also had downloaded some software tried to fixed the run-time error…but the result is same…maybe I will e-mail to lee-soft to ask foe help…
Its very good app and give perfect Vista look when used along with “VistaVG Ultimate” theme. I’m enjoying Vista look in my XP. Thanks to Lee for making ViStart and thanks to Vishal Gupta (an MS MVP) for creating the best Vista theme for XP ever.
If you don’t know about VistaVG theme, then you can get it from here:
http://www.askvg.com/vistavg-u.....indows-xp/
Thanks Ryan for sharing this cool app.