Presentation and goals

**Jose Hidalgo** · December 2nd, 2023 12:23 PM

Hi everybody. I've been registered here for years, but I have been sticking with Win 7 and delaying my Win 10/11 migration for as long as possible.

I'm a mid-aged man from France, and I'm very passionate about computer stuff. Which doesn't necessarily make me an expert.

I'm currently in the process of building a new rig, to replace my old (but still working against all odds

) Core i3 530 & Windows 7 rig.

I'm currently getting used to Win 11 on my GF's laptop (a nice Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED with a 5900HX).

Honestly I'm a Win 7 fan. I run a heavily customized Win 7 that suits my needs just about perfectly.
Among other things, I'm using a particular dark theme (SkullTrail by X3remes) that is possibly the best dark theme I've ever experienced. Visually it's just perfect for everyday use. Here's how it looks (don't mind the start menu, I've changed it anyway):

Honestly I don't need anything more. But sadly my rig is getting seriously old, and I can't stay on Win 7 forever, because of lack of support (OS and apps). So I'll soon be installing a fresh Win 11 from scratch...

... but right after that (and after a full OS image backup just in case), there will be some heavy customization again: one of my goals with Win 11 is to make it look and behave close enough to my current Win 7 (start menu, dark theme for native AND non-native apps, icons, shortcuts, context menus...) while retaining all the nice Win 11 assets.

Of course SkullTrail just doesn't exist for Win 11 (its dev stopped working on it about 12 years ago

). And unfortunately Win 11's default dark theme doesn't feel just as good. So I guess I'll have to find another dark theme (unless there is a way to adapt SkullTrail to Win 11 somehow? I have all the Win 7 files, so maybe something can be done?). As for the rest of the system, I've already found some tools and hacks that go in the right direction.

I'll probably have a couple questions on that customization side. Well, maybe a bit more than a couple.

See you around hopefully!

PS: I don't know why my emojis are so big. If there's a way to make them normal-sized, please let me know.

**Shemhamforash** · December 2nd, 2023 02:24 PM

Welcome to the site Jose. If you have never imported a theme for Windows 10/11 it may take you a while to figure out everything. I recommend you get in touch with SkullTrail and Erin might be able to port the theme and share it here. Alternatively, Erin might be willing to port it for you for personal use in exchange for a donation to the site. Just an idea but you would have to ask Erin about that.

Your emojis appear to be coming from an external site. You can access the vbulletin emojis for the site next to the post text box.

**Jose Hidalgo** · December 2nd, 2023 07:52 PM

Thank you

Will use the site's emojis now.

I have tried to get in touch with X3remes (the original author of SkullTrail), but he went AWOL a long time ago. He's from Jamaica and his latest posts in DeviantArt are from 2011: https://www.deviantart.com/x3remes/about#about

I'd definitely be interested if @Erin [EDIT - can we tag a member? I thought the "@" would work] or somebody was willing to take on the challenge. I have never imported a Win 11 theme. I'm still a Win 7 user, I have only installed SkullTrail on my Win 7 a long time ago.

SkullTrail is such a beautiful and easy to use theme, I'd really love if it could be ported to Win 11 so that we could all enjoy it. I hope that's OK.

All SkullTrail files can be downloaded here on DeviantArt, if anybody wants to give it a look. I'll be happy to help in any way I can, so just let me know. Many thanks in advance!