Hello everybody and welcome back to another video.
Now in today's episode, we're gonna be taking a look at some Windows customization stuff.
Yeah, it's been a little while since we've done one of these.
And today we're going to be focusing on the Windows 8 to 7 Transformation Pack
by ImSwordKing over here on DeviantArt.
And this is a pretty neat little transformation pack
that, as you can probably tell from the name,
transforms Windows 8 into something more Windows 7 like.
Of course, it's not gonna be 100% exact,
but it does a pretty frickin' good job
as you're going to see here when we get this installed.
And the really great thing about this new version here-
becuase this has been out for a little while, this is currently version 3.0-
-is... thanks to Dominic a.k.a the FarenOS Dev,
This entire setup process is completely automated
thanks to the Win8to7 Transformation Pack Backend.
This open source project that he's released over on GitHub.
The really cool thing about this too, is you can use this
as a base to make your own transformation pack.
He's got a whole guide here on the wiki page.
But, we're not going to touch on that today.
But it is pretty cool.
Back here on the DeviantArt page,
it does give you a list right here of some of the things that it does.
Not only does this modify the look and feel of Windows 8 or 8.1,
yes, it works on both...
It also brings back some Windows 7 programs that were removed from Windows 8.
Like, the Windows 7 Games, all those classic card games.
We've got the gadgets here, we've even got the sample media.
It brings a replica of the Getting Started page.
So it really ties a lot of stuff together to make a full Windows 7 experience.
And the best part of course, is this is completely free to download and install.
So we've got Windows 8.1 Build 9600 running here.
Nothing special.
Your standard install of Windows 8.1
And, this is what the file structure looks like when you download everything.
So we're going to, of course, double click on the executable file here...
And we'll have to authenticate with UAC.
Now, I should note- this is very important....
It will ask you, if you don't already have your system updated
with the latest Windows 8.1 updates,
which Microsoft is still pushing out, by the way, until January of next year.
The installer will ask you to run Windows Update, but luckily I've already done that.
So, we get presented with this very Windows 7 setup-like looking window.
Although, instead of "Install Now" it says "Transform Now."
So we're going to do that.
And you get the license agreement here.
If you want to read through all of this, we're of course going to just agree to it.
And right here, you get to pick your preferred branding and preferred ribbon.
So you've got "Windows 8 Professional" just in the Windows 7 style logo
that would appear at the bottom on the login screen.
You've got "Windows 7 Professional" and "Windows 7 Ultimate."
We're going to go with "Windows 7 Professional" because, why not?
And you can select your preferred ribbon.
At least the little thing over here on the left side.
So this is how it appeared in Windows 7.
This is how it appeared in Windows 8 Developer Preview and Consumer Preview.
They changed this icon out here to the word "File."
So we'll go with the Windows 7 option.
Just for the full Windows 7 experience.
And you also get to select your preferred start menu.
Again, lots of options in here.
You can go with StartIsBack, which is a paid program.
So it will install the trial and then ask you to,
you know, pay for a license after the trial is over.
Or you can go with Open Shell, which is free.
So that's what we're going to do.
What's also neat is if you were running this on Windows 8.0,
you could select Ex7ForWin8, which would actually just take
Windows 7's explorer.exe from a Windows 7 disc
you would need to have.
And use that to provide the start menu, which is pretty neat.
I've never actually messed around with that option before, so...
we'll just go with Open Shell here
since we're on 8.1.
And, you get these options here.
Up next, your preferred Aero Glass.
So you can see the slight difference between these two options here.
We'll go with the bottom one.
And you can select your Windows Aero color.
So you've got Automatic and Chocolate.
You can select both of them, or just have Chocolate selected,
or just have Automatic selected.
Of course, we'll just do both, because why not?
And on this screen here, you get to choose what components you want to install.
So you've got the Windows 7 Games, the Windows 7 Gadgets, Windows Media Center,
the Windows 7 Task Manager.
All sorts of stuff here.
You also have some experimental options.
You can use Windows 7's file copying dialog
to replace the one that's in Windows 8.
I personally like the one in Windows 8, so I'm going to not check that.
But, you see it will break Metro applications installation as well.
So there's a bit of a trade off there, at least in this current version.
You can also use the Windows 7 User Accounts page.
Which is somewhat broken, but we'll get that.
And I think everything else will work just fine.
So we're going to click on "Transform."
And that's all there is to it.
So it goes ahead right here and makes a system restore point.
It begins copying files and it will restart your system,
which it looks like it's doing that right now, to begin the transformation process.
All right.
So after 3 system restarts and just under 10 minutes,
yes I was running a stopwatch that entire time...
We are back, and we're logging in to Windows 8.
Now, you can see that on the login screen there,
it does...
It doesn't really modify the background or anything.
That still remains the same,
but it adds the Windows 7 branding down there at the bottom,
which Windows 8 does not normally have.
But...
you can see on the desktop here, that right off the bat
it looks a lot more like Windows 7.
Now, it's still doing some of its post install stuff in the background,
becuase we can't really interact with the start button yet...
It's still loading Open Shell.
So we'll just continue to let it do
(part of Windows startup sound plays) it's thing.
And it played...
(distorted startup sound plays)
Oh.
(more distorted startup sound)
Oh, no.
The uh...
(laughs)
The startup sound...
The startup sound... (even more distorted startup sound)
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, that is not good at all.
Yeah, that didn't happen before.
That's just-
I've had audio problems with VMware.
That's just VMware freaking out.
I've had that happen before.
So, that's not really anything to do with the pack here.
It's still really funny when it does-
I've never been able to get it on video. So there you go.
Now, you see right here, it comes up-
This is because we have Aero Glass installed.
That's one of the things it does. So it adds that branding down here.
Yeah, there you go.
So we are pretty much...
let's see if I open up the start menu here...
There we are. We've got Open Shell running.
We go into all programs.
We see we've got all the new programs there, including, of course,
the classic Windows Games.
Let's run some Solitaire here.
Open Shell is a bit outdated.
The version that it installs here,
you see, it did recognize that there was an upgrade.
So we can go through, play Solitaire.
And, right here is the welcome program that I was talking about.
It adds this recreation of the Getting Started program that Windows 7 has.
Of course, what we should do is go to Personalize
and apply the Windows 7 style that it adds here
to really complete this transformation.
So... there you go!
I mean, ignoring this stuff down here at the bottom,
the fact you've got the Aero Glass branding.
And the fact that the build number is 9600
which is not a Windows 7 build of Windows...
it looks pretty darn close.
I mean, there's really nothing, aside from this, that I can point out.
I mean, I guess you got this in the taskbar.
We can unpin that.
Yeah, it is almost one to one, guys.
I mean, there's a few things that I can notice
because I know what I'm looking for.
The spacing here in the start menu looks a tiny bit off,
but that's not something that an average user is going to notice.
One thing they will notice for sure, is when you right click on things
in the taskbar, you do get this massive tack here
that is not normally there in Windows 7.
So it's a bit bugged out.
So, let's take a look at some of the programs.
So, we already took a look at the games.
Of course, it brings Media Center back here, so we can open this up.
And there you go.
I never really used Windows Media Center.
I had it on Windows Vista, obviously.
That's where I first discovered it.
I know it was in Windows XP Media Center edition,
but the Windows Vista version is what I'm most familiar with.
I really would just open it up to hear the intro sound.
That's about it.
I just thought that was kind of cool.
I would not really do much more with it other than that.
Windows DVD Maker does not work by default.
You get this MPEG-2 encoder is missing error message.
If you go into the downloaded files...
Let's go back to downloads here.
...there is this, under extras, this DVD Maker fix
that will allow you to fix that.
And it does require copying some files over from a Windows 7 CD.
And it kind of walks you through that here.
So if you wanted to do that, you could go through that process.
And you've got desktop gadgets.
Of course.
It's the classic Windows 7 Gadgets.
They are here.
You probably also saw 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.
This is a really neat program.
I did not hear about this prior to recording this video.
This doesn't really add anything visually to the transformation pack.
It just adds all sorts of options.
You could just install this on Windows 7, 8, or even Windows 10
and use this with the Windows Taskbar and with the system tray over here.
You can change things like, say, instead of single clicking on
something in here to launch a program, you want to double click.
Well, you can do that by just checking
"Open with double click" right here, and now
when I single click, it won't do anything.
I have to double click to open up stuff.
What I like too, is over here with the mouse wheel settings
you can have it to where when you hover over the taskbar and start moving
the mouse wheel, it'll control the volume. So I can check the taskbar here.
Then I move down here and start with the mouse wheel
and it brings up the volume control and it does that from anywhere.
I do it over here, it will appear.
You can also have it to where, let's open up Control Panel here...
er... Devices and Printers.
I guess that's cool too.
You can check "Taskbar buttons" here
under "Minimize/restore when mouse is over."
And now if I move my mouse cursor over here and then move the mouse wheel,
it will minimize and maximize.
There's a lot of cool stuff in here.
So yeah, there you have it guys.
That is the Windows 8 to 7 Transformation Pack in all of its glory.
I hope you guys enjoyed this video, if you did
be sure to give it a thumbs up, get subscribed, all that good stuff.
And as always, I want to thank you all so much for watching
and I will see you in the next video.
(outro music)