XP Style Icons
Modern computers' power is such that you can run numerous applications at the same time. This can be great if you want to surf the Internet, listen to music and chat with friends at the same time, but it can also make it harder to manage all your tasks and find what you need. Fortunately, you can use additional software to help you control your programs.
The free program XP Style Icons includes hundreds of icons professionally designed using Microsoft's XP icon creation guidelines. It offers a wide range of categories and icon concepts, including navigation, network, e-commerce, and e-mail. It also comes in different sizes and color depths, as well as in ICO, PNG and GIF formats.
This free application from Aha-Soft allows you to customize the appearance of your Windows XP icons. It provides a complete set of tools to edit the color, size and transparency of an image; add an outline or shadow; and modify its shape. Its most notable feature is that it supports a transparent drop shadow, which is an important element of Windows XP icons, to provide definition and added dimension.
The software also allows you to fine-tune the horizontal spacing between your icons, which you can do by right-clicking an empty area of the desktop and selecting Properties. In the Advanced tab, select the Icon Spacing option and specify a value such as 40 to pack your icons pretty tightly together or 50 to spread them apart.