Giving My PC a Complete Mac Makeover

(A screenshot of my current desktop. The dock at the bottom is in fact functional.)

Always wanted a Mac, but not able to afford one? Below are a collection of hacks I've gradually added to my tablet PC to emulate much of the look, feel, and features of the Macs. The transformation is complete enough that several friends at school mistakenly thought I was running OS X on my laptop. One of them suggested I write a post on how I did it, so here goes.

(NOTE: This set-up is working well for me so far, but emulate this at your own risk. Be sure to create a system restore point before trying to install any of these programs. Unless otherwise noted, most of these should run on both Vista and XP computers and all of this software is free. I'm running Vista Business on a 1.6 GHz Intel Core Duo tablet PC with 2 GB of RAM.)

In the photo above, you can see several of my installed "hacks" in action:

• Vista OS X: This program adds the dock you see at the bottom (including the fan-shaped file directory), turns the start button into an Apple logo, and adds many cosmetic changes that make Vista's windows look like windows on a Mac. I'm still tickled by how it makes my computer look. As the name implies, it requires Vista to run.
  
• Launchy: This is one of my two favorite programs that I've added and reminiscent of Quicksilver on Macs. It allows you to press a keyboard combination (Alt+Space in my case) to automatically launch a window that lets you type in a pre-defined word to launch programs. It will also automatically build a catalog and try to guess at what program you want to launch. For example, it already "knows" if I type in "Word" or "Excel" it will launch the appropriate program. (It gives a drop-down list of guesses as shown above of it's best guesses. It will remember your latest pick.) I also have several custom commands programed in, including the ability to automatically append a new line to a text file for keeping up a todo list/making notes to myself. After I've typed in my command, the command window disappears until the next time I activate it with the keyboard.
  
• Rainmeter: This program lets you embed various features onto your desktop. Right now, I'm keeping it simple and only added a clock and current weather to my desktop background.
• Startup Delayer: In addition to tweaking the programs and services that launch when I start Windows, I also found this program which delays user-selected programs to start after a user-defined time period after Windows has started. This gives the impression of Windows starting faster and lets me get to the point where I can start launching programs sooner.
• Picasa: I'm really impressed with how quickly iPhoto can sort through pictures of Macs compared to Windows Photo Gallery. I had forgotten that Picasa has similar speed on PCs. I just changed Picasa's Viewer to be my default picture viewer on my PC. I'm now able to scan through my photos almost as fast as I could on a Mac.
• Enhance My Vista: This program allows me to make the programs in my taskbar appear as only an icon instead of an icon and title.
  
• Wallpaper: I simply did a Google Image search for "OS X wallpaper", found one I liked and made it my background.
• AVG Anti-Virus Software: I replaced the anti-virus software that came with my PC with AVG some time ago. I saw immediate performance gains and have yet to have any trouble with any kind of virus.
• Switcher: In addition to Launchy, this is my other favorite program. It emulates Exposé on the Mac almost perfectly as you can see below. It has several views and a neat ability to parse down windows by typing in the title of the window -- something I'm not sure Exposé on the Macs can do. It also allows me to select a window by number. (A feature that can be de-activated if you want it to look more Mac-ish. I find it handy.) Switcher requires Vista Business or Vista Ultimate with Aero Glass features to function. (Unfortunately, it won't work with Vista Home.)
  

Some programs that I've installed that the jury is still out on:

• Desktop Coral: This program keeps maximized windows from filling up a reserved region at the bottom (or right/left/top) of the screen. The number of pixels is user-defined. The main purpose of this is to allow me to maximize windows and still be able to see and use the dock at the bottom of the screen. Thankfully, it doesn't affect web browsers or PDFs from filling up the screen in fullscreen mode. So far I think this program is a keeper.
• AutoHotkey: This is another program similar, but distinct from Launchy. It allows you to remap keys (turning your CapsLock key into a minimize button for example), create macros, and pre-define a set of keystrokes to automatically launch programs. AutoHotkey allows for a fair amount of customization and programming that I haven't had a chance to fully explore. I think once I get a chance to fully explore it, I will like it even more.
• MKN MemoryMonitor: This program helps reign in excessive memory use by your PC. It seems to work, but also seems to increase CPU usage and disk access. I need some more experimentation with this for a final verdict. I usually don't have this running but will launch it if memory starts getting low. (What I really need to do is add more RAM.)
• Process Lasso: What MemoryManager does for memory, Process Lasso does for the CPU. It looks for programs that are gobbling up excessive CPU process cycles and lowers their priority and restricts how much of the CPU it can access. Mostly this seems to work, but it also seems to occasionally slow down programs that should be running faster. This is another program that I launch only when the CPU usage seems out of control.
• AeroSnap: This program allows you to make a window resize to take up the left half of the screen by dragging it to the left edge, take up the right half by dragging it to the right edge, or maximize it by dragging it to the top edge. (See a video of it in action here.) I decided against it because it seemed to occasionally have trouble restoring my windows back to their original size after dragging them away from the edge. Now that I have added DesktopCoral, this may be less of a hassle, so I am trying it again. The downside is that it creates another window that shows up when I switch between windows.
  
• RBTray: This is a simple program that lets you minimize any window into a tray icon. This prevents it from showing up when you switch between windows (either by Switcher or Alt-Tab). My main use for it is to hide the AeroSnap window.
  
• Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager: This program emulates Spaces on the Mac (as shown below), giving you four (or more) virtual desktops that you can swap between. The idea is that I can have several windows open on one desktop (say Excel and Word) and several on another (say a web browser and e-mail) and swap back and forth between the two. This is a neat feature, but I don't use it much for two reasons: 1) it seems a little slow and has crashed a couple of times (possibly because my system is not fast enough to keep up with the desktop transitions); and 2) I like using Switcher to see all of the windows I have open on the computer. (Switcher will only show me the windows I have open on the desktop I'm on -- exactly what it's supposed to do.)
  

Programs I've tried and decided against:

• Vista Sidebar: I like the notion of adding gadgets/widgets on the desktop to check weather and market indices, but Vista Sidebar (it comes with Vista) sucks up too many system resources for the amount of utility it gives. At some point, I may try Yahoo! Widgets, but for some reason couldn't get it to install.
  
• Samurize: This is a program that allows you to install utilities and text files onto your desktop -- very similar to Rainmeter. I've read great reviews of it, but it seems a little less intuitive "out of the box" than Rainmeter does. I may try to come back to this program at some point after exams are done.

I may be forgetting a program or two, but this represents my latest attempts and hacking my PC into a Mac. I'll update this post as I discover anything new. In the meantime, also be sure to check out Lifehacker, which helped point me towards much of this software.

While I really love the new Macs, I'm also quite pleased with my current set-up. Being on a tablet PC, one thing I can do that Mac users can't is use a stylus on my screeen, ink, and convert it into slate mode for reading PDF files and annotating them with my stylus. Believe it or not, but my PC is actually running faster now with this additional software than it did prior to me tweaking the default startup software and services that came with it. It takes longer to start-up and shut-down than a Mac, but surprisingly usually goes into suspend mode more quickly.

If you're a PC user, I hope this gives some good ideas for adding a few features to your computer. Contrary to what Triya thinks, all my trips to the Apple Store have not been in vain.

Happy hacking!