Like Microsoft Windows 7 its also possible to use the Aero theme including 3d flip or at least the Windows 7 Basic theme without transparency nor 3d flip. Note that following this tutorial and installing the “Desktop Experience” Feature also installs Windows Mail, Windows Media Player, Video for Windows (AVI support), Windows Photo Gallery, Windows SideShow, Windows Defender, Disk Cleanup, Sync Center, Sound Recorder and Character Map.
1. Start the Server Manager and click below the category Features Summary at Add Features.
2. In the Add Features Wizard window check Desktop Experience and also accept to install the Ink and Handwriting Services when asked. Then click Next.
3. Review the Installation Selections and click Install to start the installation of the selected Features.
4. After the installation has finished, click the Close button and click Yes when asked if you want to restart your computer.
5. After the computer has restarted, review and close the Installation Results window and go to Administrative Tools in the Start menu and click Services.
6. Double click on the service named Themes, set Startup type to Automatic and click Apply. After the Startup type is set to Automatic click Start to start the Themes service whereafter you can close the Services Manager.
7. Download themes.zip (38,5MB) from Rapidshare, Megaupload or 4Shared, extract it and run install(.cmd) to install the Windows 7 Default Themes. This step is optional as you can also download the themes you want from Microsoft – Windows 7 – Personalize your PC
8. Right click at an empty spot of your desktop and choose Personalize. In the Personalization window click a theme or get a nice theme via the Get more themes online link. If you have installed drivers for your videocard you will now have transparent windows and you are able to use 3D Flip (Windowskey + Tab)!
Continue to install the Windows 7 Sidebar…
19 comments so far...
Can’t activate Desktop Experience. Failed to activate the service (an error after reset). Can’t reinstall it. Please help !
Solved it by myself! Had to install Nvidia Geforce driver for Windows Vista x64.
There’s no Windows Calendar for R2
Arris: Thanks for your comment! I just copied all features from the Non-R2 Windows Server 2008 page, so updated the post now with the correct information.
Windows Calendar from Server 2008 works on R2 under WOW64. I don’t know if the reminder thing will work though.
I tried to install (following all these step with no exceptions) but when I try to set a theme, I got this message:
“Your system administrator has disabled lauching of the Display Control Panel.”
No matter how far I look for a solution, didn’t find nothing helpful.
Thanks. And congratulations for the nice work here.
You need to install windows live essentals with windows update to get the calender windows 7 does not include a bunch of the built-in apps that vista did.
If you move a window or maximize/m inimize a window after you modded Server 2008 R2 like this it still does not have ALL of the Win7-effects. Moving a windows does not result in a live-moving but Win2008 will show a Box of the size of the window, which you will move around and will just show the real window after you dropped that “box”…
anyone knows how to change this? also turn on the maximize/minimize-effects?
would be awesome
THX
Solution: go to “system properties” and switch to “best apperance” visual appearance. then all the effects are active!
I can’t do it, the button is not clickable for enabling javascript, what do I do?
Arris: Which button is not clickable? You mean the Get more themes online link in the last screenshot?
I’m having trouble getting my Win2k8 R2 to install Desktop Experience. Even after rebooting, the installation will not complete. After the 3rd reboot, it gives me a message saying there was an error and since it failed 3 times, it will not try again.
Any ideas?
Arris: Take a look at the Event Log which can be accessed via Start -> Run -> eventvwr.msc. See if you can find any Error or Warning messages in the System and Application eventlogs that make sense.
[...] have all the cool features like Windows flip, Windows flip 3d, Aero themes just like Windows 7. Here, you will find few easy easy steps that’ll help you with the transformation. [...]
After install of “Desktop Experience” the processor went to 80-90% use- task man says svc.host- stop process, again it took off- stop process-(I thought i got infected here but it turned out to be Win Defender update according to Event Viewer)
Very nice Site you have here. Just what I was looking for.
On to the next step…
Arris: I’m glad you like the site!
About the cpu usage: you can try to use Sysinternals Process Explorer to find out what’s exhausting the CPU.
how to install Desktop Environment Feature on Server 2008 R2 HPC Edition ??
[...] can, I used Win2008R2 as my desktop OS for a while. Follow this guide to do so. It has a lot of other Win2008R2 tweaks on that site as well __________________ [...]
My server says error ! refreshing !
don’t know haven’t yet activated the product ! maybe that’s why !
This is one of the most useful posts I’ve seen on the Internet in a long time. Very well done. May I suggest you add one more step… How do we get rid of the default group policies that are on Server 2008 and make it like Win 7?
Arris: I’m glad you like it! The modification of the Group Policies is described in the other articles which can be accessed via the main page of the manual.
Thanks for ur valuable Information. good work. again thanking u..
Hi and thanksa lot for the step by step tutorials
But I have a computer with win server 2008 r2 and GTX480 and the latest drivers installed but still I could not enable aero and it shows me the basic theme.
I would be glad if anyone can help
a million thanks in advance
Nima Nouri
Hi guys, playing around with Server 2008 R2 at the moment.
To be able to select the Aero theme I had to also do the following step (as noted by Kralle above) after starting the Themes service
Right click “My Computer”
Select Properties
Click on “Advanced system settings”
In the “Advanced” tab, click the “Settings” button for Performance
In the “Visual Effects” tab, choose “Adjust for best appearance”
Click “Apply”
I haven’t tried, but you will likely be able to de-select some of the features (not sure which specific ones were required to let me select the theme)
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