Winaero

Sea Shells theme for Windows 8

Ocean Life theme for Windows 8

Slow down window animations in Windows 8/7/Vista with the Shift key

In Windows Vista, Microsoft introduced the DWM (Desktop Window Manager) which implements fancy animation effects, transparency and Aero skins for window frames. Ever since Vista, it allows you to slow down window animations by pressing the Shift key (the animation you see when any dialog or window appears on screen, or when minimizing, or closing a window). This is a hidden feature that has to be enabled with a registry tweak. Read the rest of this article to learn how to enable it.

Aero8Tuner

Take your attention: White Windows for Windows 8 software was incapsulated by Aero8Tuner and not exists anymore!
Here is my brand new work for Windows 8. Aero8Tuner is the successor of my famous Aero Tuner (for Windows 7) and White Windows (for Windows 8 ). It allows you to change all settings of DWM/Aero at Windows 8 RTM+.

Warning! This version is for Windows 8 RTM and above! For Windows 7 and Windows 8 CP/DP/RP you may use previous Aero Tuner software.

With Aero8Tuner you will able:

How to get true Aero Glass with Blur in Windows 8

An MSFN member 'BigMuscle' has implemented Aero Glass with transparency and blur for Windows 8. His tiny portable app Aero Glass for Win8 v0.2 hooks the DWM API in Windows 8 and creates real blur and transparency effects on window frames using Direct 2D and Direct 3D.

It is just AWESOME:

AeroGlass with blur in Windows 8 — Aero Glass with Blur in Windows 8

Aero Glass & Blur Windows 8 theme – Simplex

How to install third party themes in Windows 8

Ever since Microsoft introduced the theming engine in Windows XP, they don't allow visual styles (themes) which are not digitally signed by themselves to be used. Windows 8 is no different in that regard, so we need to patch certain system files to be able to use these themes. In this tutorial, I will show you how you can use third party themes:

Option 1 (Recommended): UxStyle

Install the UxStyle software developed by Rafael Rivera. The main benefit of this app is that it keeps system files untouched on disk and works transparently in memory.

Just follow the instructions in the installation wizard.