Nintendo Made Windows XP Themes... Let’s Explore Them!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 เม.ย. 2021
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So it turns out that Nintendo released some custom Windows XP themes in the early 2000s. These are technically WindowBlinds skins, and they completely change the look and feel of XP. Let's explore them!
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#MichaelMJD #Nintendo #WindowsXP - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
HEYYYY I AM SO HAPPY YOU MADE A VIDEO ABOUT THIS FROM MY TWITTER POST OMG
keep up the great work, have been following you for years now :DDDD
Lool
interesting, how did you found this theme?
i doesn't like stardock btw.
I’ve seen your comment two hours ago and I’m so happy it got pinned.
I never knew that this was a thing. Thank you
That GameCube theme is freaking amazing I’d love that on windows 10
old Winwblinds themes for XP still work on Windows 10 i think
@@JoducusKwak no, the UI is way too different
@Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyandz Hmmm, interesting. Would be cool but too much UWP integration in windows now so it will only work on legacy applications sadly.
Wow, I had no idea Nintendo had involvement with Microsoft Windows add-ons in the classic Windows days! The Super Mario Sunshine theme for Windows XP is the best one. I wonder why it was only possible to obtain them outside North America back in the early 2000s?
Nintendo of Europe was (and still) a freak among them?
@@thischannelisforcommenting5680 sus
I think it’s because NOE had been doing the “register games for rewards” thing already at the time before Club Nintendo
Club Nintendo existed back then (only in Europe)
WarioWare GBA has a Window Themed on the title screen.
Kids these days only have light and dark themes. Back in MY day, we had ubnoxious sound effects, icons, colors, and Screensavers
i still dont get why microsoft didnt just incorporate windowblinds code in windows 10 and make the white/black themes "accessible" or "touch screen" themes etc. but they remade the control panel,, so they arent the smartest are they
@@JayJam1 Windows is so unfriendly to customization nowadays.
Window blinds wrecked your system pretty bad sometimes. I actually had to reinstall XP because of it
@@JayJam1 Its because it's nothing more than bloat. %99 of their users wouldn't use it, and adding someonething like that would just break other things.
Adding software like windowsblinds into the os's code would just be a recipe for disaster.
laughs in Linux.
Nintendo Windows XP Themes... Never clicked so fast in my life.
Same
When looking at the Metroid theme, I believe the "Maximize" sound there is actually the default Windows XP "Restore" sound effect. It was never applied to the default sound scheme in XP, which was why you probably have never heard it before. But if you go back to XP and look at Windows/Media (or any equivalent. I don't know as this is the Windows 10 example), then you will find a list of sound effects that the operating system would use, and "Restore" or "Windows Restore" is one of them.
imagine if when you turned on your computer it made the music jingle from when you start metroid like right befor it lets you move and when you shut off your computer it plays the death sound effect.
It's safe to say that Nintendo was weird about computers back in the day.
Edit: Apparently an unused file called "Windows" is found in Mario Maker's gamefiles and it suprisingly uses the community's Windows 10 logo (or windows 8 or it is actually official idk about these)
Ok
If a Mario game was gonna have a PC release, that would’ve been nuts.
I think you may be thinking of the unused "WindowsLogo" text in Super Mario Maker in the file that lists the different costumes, meaning that the Windows logo along with a Golden Retriever, SMB2 Mario, a Muncher, and "Tetris" (I assume a Tetris block) were once going to be costumes in SMB1.
Mario Maker was originally for PC as a Mario game building tool. Miyamoto thought it was more fun making Mario games, thus they decided to go with making a Mario game making game. That's how the game was originally made!
I don't think there was any windows logo sprites in SMM1's data, it was just part of a list of mystery mushroom costumes
1:47 Ah yes, my favourite 3D platformer, Super Mario Sunchine.
Lol! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I remember Nintendo VIP 24:7 in the UK used to have a “desktop replacement” style program at some point in maybe 2006/7 where you’d have some sort of house and you could buy rooms and furnishing for them with stars from the star catalogue? When they rebranded as Club Nintendo they stopped offering it for download and I’ve never seen any references to it since
man oh man. I still remember seeing the GameCube theme *years* ago and always wanted to see it in a video going over the different changes but I never found one. Thanks for doing this!
I'm not European, but I know a thing or two about Nintendo history:
This was almost certainly a reward for Nintendo VIP 24:7, the very first Nintendo reward system, which coincided with the EU launch of the GameCube, predating that of even Japan's Club Nintendo system by about half a year. VIP 24:7 was basically the same system as Club Nintendo would be, and in fact when the Wii launched it was rebranded as Club Nintendo to gain parity with the Japanese reward system without any major changes to how it worked
(Fun fact: Nintendo America had their own registration program, My Nintendo, that launched right around the same time as Nintendo VIP 24:7, but did not feature any loyalty rewards. It wouldn't be until December 2008, many years after Europe and Japan started their reward systems, that America would retire the My Nintendo registration program and start Club Nintendo)
Actually we still have My Nintendo over here. I assume that's where they got it from.
I've never seen these before! :O Edit; That SP skin didn't win me over, until i saw that start menu, but damn that's insane, surprised you never reviewed the royale theme for windows xp before as well, as it was a prototype skin for vista, which was released for xp, and it looks insane!
I thought it was just intended to match Media Center
I've been looking for information on how to install this for months! Thanks MJD!
I remember having that Pikmin theme for years.
I noticed the buttons on the GameCube theme have a nice yellow glow around them
2:20 I got these themes when they first came out. I'm not in europe, but in North America. Maybe I found them on an unofficial "mirror" back then.
Its'a me! The Blue Screen of Death'a! Wahoo!
Seriously though, these are freaking amazing!
I miss themes like these.
They're so obnoxious and so early 2000s its almost hard to believe computers used to be like this at some point.
Interesting! The only other 2 licensees of WindowBlinds I've seen are ATi (before they were acquired by AMD) who used it just in their "Catalyst Control Center" (that they had before AMD Adrenalin), and HP who used Stardock "MyColors" on their HP Mini special edition laptops to bypass Microsoft's theming limitations they had on Windows 7 Starter.
(11:24) I recognise that "XP Corona" theme as being used by the utility that was bundled with a "Prolink" (likely model PCC3220) USB camera my cousin had back in the day! I never knew it was also a WindowBlinds theme!
(21:08) The title bars for that theme remind me of those from the "Bluecurve" visual style used from Red Hat Linux 8 to Fedora 2.
I remember Catalyst Control Center as well! Very cool.
@@MichaelMJD
Yep, as I remember it from my Acer Aspire 5050 laptop, and I just updated my comment to also point out HP Mini special editions (my cousin got one through an ISP deal, and I've no idea where it is now) and a little utility that was bundled with an off-brand USB camera.
That GBA SP theme takes me back!!
I seem to remember they were a thing you could buy with Club Nintendo points from codes that came with games. The games and systems weren't bundled with the theme, it was just a thing on the store you could purchase with points along with like wallpaper packs and stationary stuff.
Making me aware of the Xbox Theme when I have a fresh install of XP on a ThinkPad is... Dangerous. That theme looked incredible and I only saw it for a bit.
I saw that twitter post too. You got right on the case of this lol. Pretty neat, keep up the great content.
Thank you!
you figured out so many details. great vid.
These are absolutely awesome and very nostalgic, thank you for sharing
It was part of VIP 24:7 and you got the themes by registering the game.
VIP 24:7 was a higher tier than „club nintendo“ when you registered at least one nintendo product.
Later in the Wii Era it was rolled into one and got consistent branding with japan and the U.S. being just „club nintendo“.
Apart from getting stars for the shop you also got a few downloadable goodies specific to the game.
I'm so excited to try these in my XP VM
awesome video, Michael!
Won't anybody point out how every theme has its own dedicated icon for .ZIP files (as shown each time Michael goes back to the Nintendo Themes folder to apply a new one)? It's pretty amazing, and some of the said icons are actually really nice!
Very cool video, love your content Michael!
This might actually finally let me use the Nickelodeon theme from 2009 Dell Mini! Thank you!
Nickelodeon Theme?
Got a link?
Wasn’t there also pbs themes?
I'd like to imagine they originally had sound effects for the eternal darkness theme but removed them after it drove the dev team mad
1:50 I don't know why, but this racoon icon on the desktop cracks me up.
Honestly what surprised me more was the offhand remark about Microsoft themselves supplying WindowBlinds themes. I always thought it was an application they didn't really like, or they'd have had more customization abilities natively.
11:14 That "XP Corona" windows freaked me out.
I saw a pic of the Mario Sunshine theme on Twitter and I never knew about these themes. I sorta became curious :)
Hey, just tried it on my XP Laptop. Turns out, you have to apply the correct resolution of the pack, and then the nonlabled pack as well. Then it will apply without a separate install of WindowBlinds.
Waiting the "Trying Nintendo XP Themes on Windows 10"
Hi Michael! Some 17 years back I discovered some scooby doo themes for Windows 98/XP, could you please make a video on them? It's a lost gem that I don't think anybody knows about. Those themes used to change everything, the icons, colors, sounds, cursors and it was pretty amazing seeing a scooby doo themed desktop.
Thank you
Pretty cool.
Wish I still had my old XP Machine.
It would look real nice with them.
Wow I feel old, been a registered Stardock user from before it was pay.
I had the SP theme when I was 9, part of the club nintendo VIP, which was the registration system you where talking about. It never worked properly, it always reset the normal shell after a reboot. god I feel old, them forums where a cesspool
I loved window blinds back in the day.
Made my own theme with advanced functions, so i could pin windows, collapse, can't remember the rest. Had some good animations too.
I remember an included fish tank theme that had a fish swimming around the title bar. Good stuff
Oh god I remember having installed/tried the Mario sunshine theme back then. This video was like the Ratatouille food scene bringing back memories. It was definitely something that was available in germany at the time. Checked my game cases but didn't have any of the club nintendo points code papers for those games anymore. I think redeeming the code for a game gave your account acces to windows themes, wallpapers, i think also mouse cursors(should've continued watching the video first, they were obviously shown here), maybe even system sounds but i could be wrong about that, related to the game plus some points you could use for other things on the "store". It's been a long time so maybe not everything i think i remember might be correct.
Oh I remember the Game Cube theme. I used to use it back when I was younger on my Pentium 2 PC running XP. It didn't run so well but I loved the Game Cube and loved to use this theme. Those were the times...
The gamecube one would be my favorite.
I’m so happy when you post a video
omg i remember those, you'd register them and get one item off the online store they had. I got a Mario Kart wallpaper back in the day.
Wow mike! I remember when you had only 50k subs and now you have 170k! Keep up the great work! You will reach 200k soon ;)
Thanks for sticking around! I really appreciate it!
Man, that Wind Waker theme is pretty tight! I wouldn't mine running that on my XP laptop.
the zelda theme didn't get old, it's textured and could be considered stylish still.
This was on Club Nintendo in the UK. I had them back in the day and that's how I got them!
You did not need WindowBlinds to be installed to use it. In fact, I hadn't heard of it until now.
Eternal Darkness is my favourite GameCube game. Love your vids, Michael. Keep up the good work! =D
Why videos doesn't have subtitles anymore? I noticed that after 98 SP3 video.
so did i
I can't know for sure, but it's possible this is related to TH-cam removing community captioning last September. At that time creators who met certain requirements got offered a six month free trial of the subtitling service Amara. It's possible that this is why the captioning stopped around that time, that would have been nearly six months after the end of September.
Or it could just be something else entirely, I don't know.
@@HighFrictionZone I mean autogenerated subtitles. There are on other channels, but they aren't in this channel.
@@partekponcjuszofficialchan7367 he probably chose to remove autogenerated subtitles
@@fzerosoundfontcovers Yeah, I had problems with understand English, but now I don't have problems when somebody voice is clean. MJD's voice is clean so I can understand much (to be honest I know English). But it can be problem for people who don't know English or people without hearing.
This reminds me of the Windows 98 days when my Dad bought the Command and Conquer: Red Alert pack that contained the Aftermath and Counterstrike expansions. I remember that at least Counterstrike came with a Windows theme that was centered around the giant ant missions
I saw these on twitter a few days ago. when I saw that you had retweeted the tweet, I knew you'd end up making a video on them.
I should mention that I haven't watched the video yet.
From what I remember it didn't matter which game you bought and register. For every eligible game there was a scratch card included that you can redeem for points (I believe they were called Star Points). With those points you could buy from an online store from Nintendo, which indeed features a lot of PC stuff such as desktop backgrounds, screensavers and these themes. I remember seeing them and always thought that was a waste of points because it's just a theme or wallpaper. Especially when they started to do physical merchandise like video game OST's and special edition game systems.
Great to see them in action at last! Despite I have never bought it I have always wondered how they look like in action! :)
*All* of these themes are superb... But the GameCube and Gameboy Advance SP themes are probably the *best* unofficial Windows XP themes I've ever seen. Thank you for uploading!
Thanks for showing that !
Oh yeah, very 2000ish. I used to use WindowBlinds way too much back then. As far as I remember the themes I had in the past did change the sounds for logon and logoff as well as startup and shutdown. Some of the themes even changed the bootscreen. I would have been interested, if these Nintendo themes did this as well. But nice video nevertheless
Eternal Darkness was not only one of the best games ever released on the Cube, but was also arguably the best 'Lovecraftian' game ever made. You should play it if you get a chance.
I didn’t have the Nintendo themes back in the day but I remember having a very similar problem installing custom themes. They’d change the background and curser but nothing else. I must’ve needed window blinds too.
Club Nintendo still exists, it's just now under the name "My Nintendo
And It's crap
I'd enjoy seeing you showcase more windows theming made by video game companies. I know sega released screensavers and things that I still remember fondly but can't find much information about.
Love that Microsoft Sam voice of yours!
I remeber putting a pokemon first movie theme on windows 98 back in the day
Fascinating stuff. Y'know, this does make me wonder as to what hypothetical themes of GameCube and GBA games that didn't get the same love as the likes of Super Mario Sunshine and Metroid Prime would be like. I for one would've really liked to see Luigi's Mansion and Kirby Air Ride desktop themes...
If mentioned skins are from 2000 and Nintendo used Windows Blinds 3.x it's clear that those themes were supposed to use with Windows 9.x, not Windows XP. but they should still can be aplied to Windows XP (as classic themes or some?). I'm sure that proper themes from XP era could modiffied explorer sidebar.
Yes, it was a bit of backwards compatibility owing to the fact that Desktop Themes got its start w/ Windows 95 (via the optional Microsoft PLUS! pack) -- if you installed an upgrade edition of Windows 98 or ME it would simply add new Themes alongside the existing ones. Windows XP did the same thing if you installed it as an upgrade to an existing Win9x/ME installation, tho I remember it had some minor issues....
Good video Michael! :)
I remember using the Super Mario Sunshine theme for some time. But it worked paerfectly using only the Nintendo Desktop Manager, there was no need to install WindowBlinds to change the task bar or anything else...
Are there any welcome and shutdown sounds? I would like to hear it :).
That's so cool, but I'm left wondering if there are any startup sounds for the themes
Before you mentioned them, I knew what themes they were. 1.) Star Fox Adventures, 2.) Super Mario Sunshine, 3.) Eternal Darkness, 4.) Pikmin, 5.) Gamecube, 6.) Game Boy Advance, 7.) Metroid Prime, 8.) Zelda. Most have a Classic/Open Shell Port for the start menu in Windows XP mode. Star Fox Adventures has a Windows 7 mode port as well. Eternal Darkness is the only one I couldn't find an Open Shell Port for, but I would like to see in an Open Shell Windows 7 format.
I downloaded a collection of Open Shell themes a few weeks ago and was curious about the Nintendo ones. Very cool that they have been ported, and are still usable now, even in Windows 11! I seem to be missing a few, I would really like to find the Zelda one. Have you managed to find it?
@@gx_64 I think I've it along with the files for the Eternal Darkness one along with some fan made sonic ones, but it has been some time ago.
Try looking into the Classic Shell and Open Shell Site forums and use the Internet archive to if you need to as you might be able to find them that way. I just wish I could find a version of the Eternal Darkness one made in Windows 7 style similar to the Star Fox one. However, I've been considering jumping to LinuxMint, so if there were Cinnamon Spices (themes) that used them instead, I might be inclined to use them over Open Shell as Microsoft is just pushing their luck these days.
Lol i saw the sunshine style tweet recently and now there is a video about it.
Being an avid gamer back in the day, especially on Nintendo consoles, I never heard of this, outside of perhaps a GameCube favicon. I forget where I even found that offhand, perhaps from Nintendo’s official site back in the day or from some demo disc.
My brain : can it run on windows 10
Me to MJD : please make it run on windows 10
Let’s see if it works
I have these themes as well, and ALOT more stuff from Nintendo VIP. These items, including these themes, were from the 'Nintendo VIP Den'. Nintendo of Europe was really into bringing the Nintendo experience to PC back in those days. I have screensavers, icons, the 'Nintendo Crib' which has several rooms for several games, I've got desktop games, clocks... And ofcourse wallpapers, some avatars. Even printable files and MP3's. It's insane how much effort they put in it. I think I've got nearly 2000 individual files.
Regarding Nintendo VIP: You got these themes (and other stuff) by buying them with 'stars'. You got these stars with consoles and games (250-500 stars) but also by simply visiting the website each day (5-10 stars). So it really was free, as in: You don't even have to buy Nintendo products.
I'm not really sure why Nintendo is purging everything from the Wayback machine though. You'd think they should know their business model in large part revolves around nostalgia...
The Zelda one really is lovely. I used it for a good while back in the day.
The Windwaker one stood the test of time. Looks clean, sleek, pleasing.
Windows XP with Nintendo themes sounds comfy. What programs would such a machine run, vba and zsnes?
I love how the gamecube theme gives the start menu a handle. It's so silly but I like it.
How delightfully convoluted.
A lot of them look fantastic.
I'm a bit curious how well would they work on ReactOS.
I live in Belgium and I can confirm this.
The process is what you explained, so you got a code to register your games and consoles and you would get stars.
With the stars you could purchase some gadgets from Nintendo, like you still can do with the club Nintendo right now.
Now the Windows theme's where some extra's you got when you registered a game as a bonus. Other things you got where wallpapers, player-guides, mobile wallpapers, chat icons, ....
An other interesting thing you could get from Nintendo was a living wallpaper of a digital room that you could decorate with Nintendo merch and standard furniture.
I was searching on Google for a screenshot but didn't found any references.
I wonder if the place where you registered also told you to install the full version of WindowBlinds for everything
I mean if they didn't then it would be lackluster for the end user
Oh boi, this brought back memories from me in 2010 putting starcraft 2 theme on my win xp.
Very cool!
I also remember the XP Themes from Alienware... They were awesome!
Did you try applying the Nintendo visual styles after Luna instead of Classic? I suspect that Classic disables the visual styles engine in XP and that the version of Window Blinds that the Nintendo app is based on didn't know how to deal with that.
I have an old HP desktop from around 2003-2004 and I tried it on there and it actually works without using a slightly newer version of WindowBlinds! Turns out VMWare virtual machines running XP seem to have a problem with that specific version of WindowBlinds used for the Nintendo Desktop Manager, I know this because I tried WindowBlinds version 3.1 on VMWare and it didn't work either.
How do you go about getting the service packs for windows xp today? I've been needing to reset my netbook for a while and was afraid to in fear that I wouldn't be able to get the service packs.
Ah windowsblinds, brings back a lot of memories
That Gamecube theme is pretty sweet :)
Very cool thanks for the video
Tankyou so much for the video of this awesome themes, you think they can work on Windows10?
Never knew about this. I've used windowblinds a ton in the past but I never knew other companies much less nintendo used it.
yeah I remember these, maybe I even had one of them briefly
I can't believe nobody told me about this, would've LOVED to do it back in the 2000s
I remember having Alienware themes on my non Alienware PC😀
I also had an app you could totally rebuild your own XP log on screen i think it was an add on related to windows blinds
It'd be really fun if the Zune theme could be applied with the Metroid one, I feel like the sidebars would work well with it.
I remember using the GameCube and Mario Sunshine themes, I don't remember well but I think you earned points and then you would trade those for these themes and songs. in particular I remember a song from Nintendo DS that I just can't find anywhere😢
I remember that there was a modified dll that you could replace with the original and be able to install themes without any program. What was the name of the website with free win XP themes, themexp something?