For all those who want to make the operating system they use a little different, we recently created a personalization guide for Windows 10, and although many like the idea of giving a completely new look to your desktop, it is also common the type Of people who prefer things to change little, those who would be happy with a Windows that looks almost like 15 years ago.

The classic Windows theme that everyone remembers from the Windows 98 or Millenium years, could be used in later versions of the system, such as Vista or XP. But with the advent of Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 and Microsoft’s attempts to move away from that era and improve its style with the Modern design, that classic theme disappeared. However, there are ways to get him back and if you are one of his fans, this article will cheer you up.

This is a zone free of prejudice, nobody will judge you or call hipster for wanting your Windows 10 look almost like Windows Me . Hey, maybe you do it for one of your parents or grandparents who are used to the classic theme and it would be easier to use that interface, or at least something very close.

Of course, the process is a bit longer and more complicated than just applying a theme from the control panel, but if you’re willing and you’ve read up here, it probably will not bother you. To summarize the purpose of this post in two images.

Change the topic

The first thing we need to do is to change the theme to one that is most similar to the classic theme. On the web you can get many imitations, but personally I find that the theme Classic X by Neiio is one of the most similar and at the same time pleasing even for those who believe that old theme is ugly.

This theme has three variants, one with the top bar of the windows blue (Classic Nude) and another completely gray (Classic Pure Nude), also vary the relief of the buttons to maximize, minimize and close.

In our personalization guide you can read all about how to change the subject. The first step is to patch the system with this tool to install third-party themes. Download your new theme and copy it to C: Windows Resources Themes.

Then right click on the desktop and choose the Customize option that appears in the popup menu. In the new window, look for the options on the right, select Themes, click Theme Settings and in the new window choose any of the variations of the “Classic” theme.

Change icons

With the forgiveness of purists, I have chosen an icon theme that is not exactly like the classic icons, but that seems to me very well with what we want to achieve. In addition, it is easy to install and completely optional. If you want something more retro and truly “classic”, here you can download the classic icons of Windows 98 / ME / 2000 .

To install these icons you only have to download the package in DeviantArt , extract the file in a folder of your choice, and inside the folder “iPack installer” change the name of the file “Turquoise 1.2_exe” to “Turquoise 1.2.exe” run it.

Be sure to create a restore point before installing the icons and then reboot to see the changes completely.

Change start menu

We can not feel that our Windows 10 looks like the classic if we do not get rid of the new start menu with all those modern tiles and interactive stuff. The solution is to use StartIsBack a tool that allows us to customize the start menu in many ways, and it has an option to make it look as simple as the old Windows.

Once installed you can proceed to configure it directly. Or, simply right clicking on the start button and selecting Properties.

From the Appearance section you can choose the style of the menu and the start button. The third option is the most classic, and you can even change the color of the background to be the same as the theme we apply. You can change the start button to a more classic one (something I have pending in my capture), just use the button that comes in the ClassicX theme folder and add it from StartIsBack. You can also download buttons with BMP or PNG format from DeviantArt as the program suggests.

If you choose to show all programs as an XP-style drop-down menu, you’ll take a trip to the even bigger past. You can play with the rest of the options to get what works for you. From removing the most used applications and newly installed programs, open up sub-menus when you hover the mouse over them.

Change the taskbar

Another important step to make this look more classic, is to get rid of the superbar style with large icons. For this we can simply use the options offered by the same Windows, or use more advanced tools like 7 taskbar tweaker that has many more possibilities.

However, the simplest method is to right-click on the taskbar and select Settings . There you will have to change two important options: activate Use small taskbar buttons and select “Never” from the “Merge taskbar buttons” menu.

Change Windows Explorer

The Windows Explorer has many new things from Windows 8, and in Windows 10 they added even more. The old explorer was pretty simple, and having all those new menus, like the ribbon, is not going to work with this style.

To get a more classic browser, we can use OldNewExplorer. With this tool we can remove the ribbon menu, use the classic division of disks, hide the text in the windows of the browser, hide the icons in the browser window, hide the button with an arrow to go up in the browser navigation, use Alternate navigation buttons (such as Windows Vista), change the browser style by three different, and style the status bar.

To make it look as good as possible with the classic theme, you should check the box “Use command bar instead of Ribbon, and just uncheck ” Use alternate navigation button style “.

Change cursor

Last but not least, one last touch of “authenticity” is to change the style of the mouse pointer. To do this you need to open the Control Panel, then go to Hardware and Sound. Under Devices and Printers select the Mouse option.

In the new window that appears select the “Pointers“ tab and in the “Scheme” drop-down menu you will see several options. The classic pointer no longer appears, but you can choose the black system scheme that looks much older.

Another option is to download an outline from the Internet, such as [this] (C: Users Pictures mouse.png). Copy it to the path C: Windows Cursors then select it from the list. The extension of the cursor files is .cur.