One of the better options that Windows has always given to its users from the very beginning is the customization of Graphical User Interface. The major change occurred with the release of Windows XP. Windows XP came with the concept of themes which could easily be changed and the color schemes of Windows could be customized according to our requirements. Same concept carried on in Windows Vista and Windows 7 except that they included Windows Aero themes, not present in Windows XP. But the very famous Theme for Windows including Windows XP had been Windows Classic Theme. This theme was removed from Windows 7.

The biggest benefit of Windows Classic theme is that it takes very little system resources to work. If you don’t have a good graphics card and your system is running out of memory, you could simply switch to Windows Classic theme in order to save and optimize system resources. Unfortunately Windows Classic theme has been stripped out from Windows 7 and Windows 8. Windows basic theme has taken place of the Windows Classic theme.

kizo2703 from Deviantart has released Windows Classic theme for Windows 8 RTM. The theme works on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems and closely resembles the original Windows classic theme of Windows XP and before.

To install and use the theme, just follow the steps below:

-Download Windows Classic theme for Windows 8 from here. The file will come as a zip file.
-Extract the zip file to a separate folder. The zip file contains only one file named classic.theme.
-Move the extracted classic.theme file to the following location:
C:\Windows\Resources\Ease of Access Themes folder
-Double click on the theme file or activate if from the Themes menu under Control Panel –> Appearance and Personalization –> Personalization
-To switch back to the Windows 8 theme, just select any other theme under the same “Personalization” window.