I have had Leopard skins on my desktop loads and i keep removing them and re doing them because of the memory usage. My computer slows down dramatically whenever i skin it. Are there any ways of skinning without having to install lots of third party things (also known as memory hogs 
)
James,
Try to keep a list of the features of Leopard that are useful to you.
For skinning you have two alternatives:
Software like WindowBlinds (kinda heavy in memory)
MSStyles (uses Windows native way to skin windows, you need XP for this)
I recommend doing the second way. FlyakiteOSX uses msstyles as far as I know.
What are your PC specs? (ram memory, processor, disk size)
Well, here is my spec:
512MB DDR SDRAM
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (Processor)
160GB HD
Some kinda graphics card (not onboard)
DVD R/RW + DVD-ROM
Windows XP Media Center Edition
It is a custom build PC.
I have been skinning it today and so far have done a lot whilst only install RKLauncher 
Removed the Taskbar, resized the icons, replace icons, removed all desktop icons, install Safari 3 and a couple of other things. I still don't have a taskbar and i have not skinned Windows Explorer yet!
Any hints on a low memory, good, taskbar? And also a good way of skinning Windows Explorer (Google here i come!)
James,
I've been investigating a little around, and maybe it would be better for you to get an additional 512 MB module (so as to get 1 GB total memory) or maybe even only 256 Mb, as a 768 Mb total memory should be fine for you. It is the only thing I would do to your PC, everything else is just ok.
I've noticed Firefox consumes a lot of memory (don't know Opera, Internet Explorer) (about 100 Mb all the time) but as you are a Safari user this has no point to mention 
Go to the task list (Control + Alt + Del, Processes tab) and sort them by memory usage. Also kill mdm.exe if you find it (unless you are a MSVC developer) I've noticed from time to time it suddenly slows down the machine a lot (not much noticeable in machines such as yours but I thought you may want to know that).
Thanks. I have just been looking around and have found a great little tool called reshack. It lets me edit all of the Windows exe files so i can make the explorer.exe ACTUALLY like a mac. Learning how to use it at the moment but it has a great visual dialogue editor that lets just drag all the buttons around. It has a built in compiler and also lets you save. Already played around with the calculator I think the first thing i will make is going to be a mac calculator look a like
James,
Wow! Great idea!
An MSStyle (lot of them with Leopard look already around) plus your Resource Hacker hacks is denifitely a very good idea.
I've been using Resource Hacker to translate apps, change icons and the like, but never thought about doing this.
You may want to publish a tutorial, or maybe even patches to get calc and other apps with your modified resources. What do you think?
Well, here is my spec:512MB DDR SDRAM
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (Processor)
160GB HD
Some kinda graphics card
DVD R/RW + DVD-ROM
Windows XP Media Center Edition
It is a custom build PC.
I have been skinning it today and so far have done a lot whilst only install RKLauncher
Removed the Taskbar, resized the icons, replace icons, removed all desktop icons, install Safari 3 and a couple of other things. I still don't have a taskbar and i have not skinned Windows Explorer yet!
Any hints on a low memory, good, taskbar? And also a good way of skinning Windows Explorer (Google here i come!)
James,
'...Some kinda graphics card'... won't do. since we are practically dealing with graphics here, check out your video RAM. With your specs, you should have at least 128 MB video RAM or better yet 256MB.
I am playing around with a LOWER spec platform, and I DON'T HAVE PROBLEMS:
512 MB ddr400; AMD Sempron 2600 1.6GHz; 64MB nvidia AGP video card; 40GB HD running XP Home SP2...
am also running Objectbar 1.6, Objectdock 1.9 freeware (with KK menu stacks), Flyakite 3.5 (with Ubericon); Avedesk 1.3 for desktop Icons, Rainmeter for system monitoring, Windowblinds 5.5, and WindowFX 3 for shadows...smooth as silk, mate. plus firefox2.
You might want to check this out - http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showforum=53
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