RSSMicrosoft Shares Windows XP Holiday Packs
By Nate Mook | Published December 9, 2002, 11:59 PM
To get into the spirit of the holidays, Microsoft has released special "Fun Packs" for Windows XP featuring winter-themed skins, sounds and templates. The three Fun Packs integrate with Windows Media Player 9 Series and Movie Maker 2 betas, along with Internet Explorer 6.
Windows Media Player 9 Series Winter Fun Pack adds new Ginger Man and Ice skins, winter visualizations, and holiday themed Auto Playlists that use the Smart Jukebox feature.
Digital Video with Windows Movie Maker 2 Winter Fun Pack features a collection of wintery sound effects, holiday music, titles, video titles, and cut scenes. The eight holiday tunes include "Jingle Bells" and "Silent Night."
Digital Photography, Communications, and Browsing Winter Fun Pack includes templates for turning pictures into customized greeting cards, and a Favorites list for Internet Explorer containing 50 holiday-oriented Web sites.
The Fun Packs and additional winter screensavers may be downloaded from Microsoft's Windows XP Web site. Windows Media Player 9 Series Release Candidate and Movie Maker 2 Beta are required to use their respective Fun Packs.
Microsoft seems to have forgotten that on half the planet, the holiday season is in SUMMER!
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|Because the vast majority of their customers are in the half where it is winter.
Since they obviously can't make everyone happy (not everyone will like their choice of holiday tunes, etc.) they pretty much have to stick to something that will make MOST of their customers happy.
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|im not a betting man, but im thinking drxym is a biased linux fanboy. there are websites out there to help you with windows/mac skins, you just have to look around.
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|What is it with people like Microsoft & Apple? They go to the effort of making their operating systems skinnable/themable and then don't bother to freely release the information required for third parties and enthusiasts to skin them.
Is it any wonder then that GTK, KDE, Mozilla, WindowMaker, E WinAmp and other 'open' skinning formats have hundreds of skins to choose from and OS X & XP can count theirs on one hand.
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|What's the point of skins? The OS does what I need it to do. I can change the color and wallpaper, isn't that enough?
Perhaps Microsoft and Apple looks at their operating systems as a tool, not a toy.
Just my 2¢.
I know some people like playing with skins, I just find them unnecessary. But if you need skins that bad, you can install a third party program, something like WindowBlinds, to play with.
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|Because MacOS and Windows ship with themes that look good. Of course there are hundreds of themes for KDE/Gnome/etc because the default themes blow.
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|Yearrhhh you hit the spike on the head with that comment. I have tried WindowBlinds and a couple of other progs like WindowBlinds, and they all works like a fart in a cup of tea.
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|If the default skins in XP & OS X are so great, why keep it closed? If other people's skins are going to be inferior there should be no fear from either Microsoft or Apple that users will switch or have a preference in the matter is there?
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|wow.. fun.
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|LOL!!
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