I don’t know about you, but it feels like I’ve always been searching for the perfect sci-fi user interface for my PC. Admittedly, a lot of my inspirations (Star Wars, Minority Report, Tron, etc.) are not as practical as they are awesome to look at, but I just had to believe that a PC could look like something straight out of a movie if done properly. Sadly, in the past every theme I came across either cost money, had a lot of glitches, wasn’t usable on a daily basis, completely fell short of what I had imagined, a combination of these, or all of them at once.
If you haven’t already figured out where this is going, I’ll give you a hint: you should be sensing an “until now…”
What you see above is a very heavily Tron Legacy-inspired desktop running a compilation of multiple lightweight tools alongside the built-in Windows theme engine (though you will need to be using a uxtheme patch, as with any third-party theme). The main star of the show is the popular desktop widget engine Rainmeter, but also worth mentioning is Black Glass Enhanced, a neat little tool that adds Windows Aero transparency to the backgrounds of up to 14 processes, giving them a very clean and futuristic feel. The theme itself is a Windows 7 Visual Style called HUD Evolution–arguably where the most magic takes place. Further rounding off the package, custom cursors, login screen, and a full installer* are included in the Hagen3D package, making sure you have literally everything you need in just one download.
After using the package for a couple of weeks, I can definitely attest to its quality and usability. You may need to adjust a couple font colors in order to use it in certain applications, but with only minor exceptions I have found Hagen3D to be every bit as usable as the normal Windows 7 theme, and a hundred times more appealing to look at. It’s especially great that the package is extremely customizable–you are really free to choose which elements you want and which you do not want, and in the case of the Rainmeter widgets, even arrange everything to where you want on your screen. It has been a very long time since I’ve been this impressed with a user-made theme.
If you like what you see and aren’t afraid to mess with a few system files, I highly recommend Hagen3D and HUD Evolution. Download links for everything you’ll need are below.
1. Rainmeter
2. Hagen3D (Rainmeter widgets) /mirror (EU)
3. HUD Evolution (How to Install)
Any other tools you may need (e.g. a UXtheme patcher) are included in the above files. Enjoy, and good luck!
