Vista Transformation Pack 9.0 is Released

I’ve been on the Vista Transformation Pack bandwagon for about exactly one day. Lucky for me the 9.0 release came out in just enuff time for me to be pleased with 8.01 and want an upgrade.

I installed 8.01 on a laptop (700MHz & 256KB) running XP Pro SP2. It seemed to run fine. Minor choppiness but expected that from the hardware I’m running it on. There were some things that seemed a little weird, some checkboxes I couldn’t check. I don’t know what the problem was but, I’m going to uninstall 8.01 tonight an get 9.0.

So far I’ve been impressed with this bundle of Vista style apps. It might be a little overkill for the laptop but when I revamp my main desktop, this will be one of the first things installed. Right after Firefox and AIM of course.

http://www.windowsxlive.net/vista-transformation-pack-9.0-its-here…

…and here’s an excerpt from the website if you’re to lazy to click. The best part able this website? It looks like ass in IE, go figure. Well, IE6 at least.

Vista Transformation Pack 9.0 Keynotes:

New 3rd-party applications
ViSplore – Vista Glass explorer simulator
Vista Drive Icon – adding free space percentage in your drive icon like Vista explorer
Vista Rainbar – Lightweight Vista sidebar based on Rainmeter that even consume less resources than real Vista Sidebar

Improved 3rd-party applications
ViStart – Files indexing for documents search, improved reliability and compatibilities
ViOrb – Improved graphic and reliability (C++ re-written)
TrueTransparency – Improved reliability with improved AeroStyle’s glass border
WinFlip – Improved stability and reliablity

New functionalities
Setup personization – Allow customizing Vista experiences upon installation without access to Welcome Center
Windows XP Service Pack 3 compatibilities – Now you can enjoy Vista themes after installation with Windows XP Service Pack 3
x64 compatibilities – More secured x64 installation without getting hurt by incompatibilities

There’re also a lot of bug fixes and refinements in the program but let’s just keep it simple with these for now. You can experience the rest later by yourself.

Changes in Version 9.0
-Added Gavatx’s Vista Rainbar 4.3 (Slim) in place of Thoosje’s Vista Sidebar
-Added large icon resizing option for high resolution monitors
-Added Personalization setup screen for configuring current user account before installation
-Added running ViStart, ViOrb and ViSplore to WindowBlinds and TrueTransparency’s exclusion list (prevent stability issues)
-Added ViSplore project (Vista Glass Explorer for Windows XP/2003)
-Added Vista Drive Icon in place of Vista Windows Drive Icon
-Added Windows XP Service Pack 3 uxtheme patching compatibilities
-Fixed automate 3rd-party applications optimization requirements
-Fixed graphic driver detection issues in transformation package for cases that doesn’t use the first slot of driver
-Fixed OS detection incompatibilities with Windows Vista
-Fixed possible errors when auto-configuring user account during installation without “Express Mode”
-Fixed Thoosje Sidebar’s auto-configuration bug on some resolutions.
-Fixed uninstallation script to terminate newly added applications such as WinFlip, TrueTransparency, etc.
-Fixed Vista orb positioning in “System Properties” dialog
-Fixed WindowBlinds’ installation detection bug in configure user account dialog
-Updated Aero Style’s glass border for more visibility and less distortion for both WindowBlinds and TrueTransparency
-Updated AeroStyle’s glass border in TrueTransparency to simulate “little-blurring-like” WindowBlinds
-Updated boot screen to traditional ones without Vista flag
-Updated configure user account’s installed components and applications UI
-Updated “Glass” sounds scheme from Windows Vista’s Ultimate Extras
-Updated installation branding bar image
-Updated TrueTransparency to version 0.9.4
-Updated ViOrb to version 1 (C++ re-written)
|-Added start orb’s right click menu
|-Fixed hook recovery when explorer shell is reloaded
|-Fixed always on top visibility issues with some applications including ViStart
|-Updated start orb graphic to for all sides compatibilities
-Updated ViStart to version 2.0 build 3467
|-Added font customization feature in settings.xml
|-Added indexing file search support like Vista (you can search for extension with .ext)
|-Added “Reset Shell” in menu option to reload explorer along with ViStart
|-Added multi-DPI Support
|-Fixed Chinese characters issue with Recent Documents
|-Fixed hook recovery when explorer shell is reloaded
|-Fixed start menu’s hooking reliability with full screen and resolution changes
|-Fixed strange ActiveX errors
-Updated Visual style’s top taskbar background to have the same image as bottom’s like Vista
-Updated WinFlip to version 0.50
-Updated wording in some areas for easier understanding
-Updated x64 operating systems compatibilities