Discovering Great XP and Vista Themes

I was recently stumbled across a link to this XP Zune theme when searching for ways to jazz up my older laptop. I had forgotten, but I used to really love this theme! The theme was sort of a take off on the also awesome “lost” XP theme - Royale Noir, but with a few tweaks. It’s sort of funny to look at this today, nearly two years later, as I’m running Vista. I still have a very similar color scheme going on now – a dark taskbar and Start Menu and a simple background that shows off my widgets and icons (I guess I’m not much for desktop cleanliness after all). The only variation is that I have blue/greenish windows now. Of course, this led me down the path of looking for a way to customize Vista's themes even more. I know Stardock has professional software to do so, but what about a simple free theme? I ended up here where I discovered a whole slew of themes, skins, and wallpapers for Vista, including the sleek and simple Chocolate Theme (pictured). Nice!