I was wondering if there are any Linux distros that look the same, or almost the same as Windows (any version)? I'm meaning with the original Microsoft icons, sounds, and login screen. They don't have to be supported anymore. Just wanted to mess with them (in virtual machines, of course). Thanks, everyone!

This is the only attempt I know of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire

I showed that to someone a decade ago, and the immediate reaction was "Thats' not Linux."

ReactOS is basically an open-source Windows.

Redmond Linux carried a Windows-like theme, as well as it's successor Lycoris Desktop/LX. I "THINK" ZorinOS was another, though this may have changed.

There's also various themes for Xfce and GTK that can mimic a Windows-like look and feel, and Ubuntu has something on it:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/20288...windows-7.html

Personally, I don't care what anyone uses, but these themes and icon packs are useful for helping users feel welcome to a new system, especially managed environments.

Also, leave us not forget that, "unlike Microsoft Windows," the GUI of Linux (if it even has one ...) is not "tightly integrated into the system." In fact, it is altogether separate from it.

If your system's running any GUI, it'll either be "XWindows" (no relation ...) or "XOrg." Both of these are actually client-server interfaces, even if (as is often the case) both parts are running on the same piece of hardware.

(But this means that you can also successfully run a "fully graphic session" on a remote computer ... even a computer which does not have a graphics-card installed! The server, after all, doesn't need a graphics card: only the client does.)

The "graphical shell," whatever it is, runs as a client of XWindows/XOrg. (Which is why you might have "KDE" and "Gnome" and who-knows what-else on the same machine, and can switch between them, or use both at the same time.)

Yes, there are definitely some shells which very closely mimic various incarnations of the Windows graphical user interface. (And, in my opinion, there are shells which significantly improve upon anything that Redmond has so-far dreamed of.)

A very key point is: that the underlying technology and architecture that's available to you in Unix/Linux is much more sophisticated than what Windows users are stuck with. There's no clumsy "remote desktop," nor "Citrix," nor any need for them. The "client-server GUI" is a much more powerful and sophisticated way to do it ... and it is not "tightly-coupled to the guts of the operating system," as it is in Windows.

"Obviously, there's nothing that Redmond can do about it now." They're quite stuck with what they've got. Fortunately, we are not.

You don't have to "pick a distro" to make the distro that you have look "exactly like Windows, icons and all." Furthermore, you can make that same(!) system "look altogether different," and you can switch between them at will.

frogz2007,

Try Zorin OS 9 and then use the Zorin Look Changer.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/21076...-a-new-pc.html


If you want to change the look of Zorin OS to look like either Windows 7 (default), Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Linux (GNOME 2.x) or Mac OS X, please use the Zorin Look Changer.

I have just noticed that you are using Zorin!