First things first, you can't have a clean looking stylish desktop without getting rid of all those icons you likely have cluttering your screen. The easiest way to do this in Windows XP is to right click on the desktop, go to 'Arrange Icons By,' and un-check "Show desktop icons." After getting rid of all your shortcuts and icons, you'll want to get a Dock so you can easily run software and other such things. I recommend RocketDock. When you get it downloaded and installed, be sure to tweak the settings until you set it up how you want it. You can add shortcuts to your favorite programs and folders. Here's a video explaining some of the features - Video. If you're using the default dock icons, I suggest setting the dock to autohide. You can download custom icons from other websites, or create your own. Reflection is a popular set which you can search for on DeviantArt.
Next up, you should find a cool wallpaper to show off your clean screen. I use http://interfacelift.com and http://www.deviantart.com. On DeviantArt, browse to the Customization section on the left navigation bar and go to the Wallpapers sub-category.
Another simple thing you can do to make your desktop better looking is download a program called Rainmeter. Rainmeter allows you to run different configurations that display on your desktop, such as calendars, clocks, system information, e-mail notifications, weather, etc... You can download custom configs and themes from places like DeviantArt, use the default theme, or create your own if you're brave enough to learn how.
Usually when I'm at my computer I'm also listening to music. Sometimes I'll download new music and have no idea what I'm listening to. I also like to have more than one way of changing song tracks and seeing Artist/Title/Album information. This brings us to our next program, CD Art Display(CAD). CAD is a minimal program that displays song information and album art on your desktop. You can download different themes or skins for it to change the way it looks when it displays the information. You can find it at www.cdartdisplay.com.
For other elements of your desktop like how the bar at the top of a window looks and how the close, maximize, and minimize buttons look, you'll want to get a program called True Transparency. Themes for it can be found on DeviantArt and other sources.
Now we get into some more complicated stuff- visual styles and shell programs. Visual styles are the themes of your computer. They control how the windows look, menu backgrounds, buttons, etc...In order to run custom visual styles you have to patch some of your system files. There is a guide to doing this on Lifehacker. Trust me it's not as hard as it sounds. You can find custom visual styles on DeviantArt as well.
The default Windows shell is Explorer.exe. The shell basically creates the start menu, the desktop, and other things. You don't have to use the default. I use a shell program called Litestep because it's better for customization. You can download and create your own custom Litestep themes, which are fairly easy to install(mostly involves copying and pasting theme files).
Here is a screenshot of my desktop as an example. I'll explain the various elements:
Ok I basically have four different programs running to create the overall look:
- The Butterfly icons on the right side of the screen are my dock icons, using RocketDock. I'm not sure where I found the icons, but if you want them I can send them to you.
- CD Art Display is showing what music I'm listening to in the bottom right corner. The theme is one I created for this suite(called Squeeze).
- In the picture of the girl, the top bar and the buttons which aren't visible in the screenshot are created by True Transparency. I'm using a theme I created for it.
- All the rest of the elements are created by Litestep. The clock, calendar, start menu, taskbar, right click menu, and shut-down menu are all part of a Litestep theme I created.
If you want to download the elements I created of this suite you can go to my DeviantArt Page. Any questions? Let me know.
