Look and feel in Vb.net

[sultanhamad]

Hi experts;
I have a windows Xp and Vb 2008. I develop an application but i want to makes its look and feel like windows 7. I am java programmer and in java it is very easy to change ur application look and feel. How i get my application look like windows 7 include all controls like button message box and etc
Regards

[Sitten Spynne]

In Windows Forms? Install Windows 7. Or buy a third-party skinning component. But then your application doesn't look like all of the other Windows XP applications that are trying to follow the rules and look like Windows XP applications.

You can get a slightly updated visual style from using WPF, but Microsoft also strove to make WPF applications on XP look like they are XP applications.

Look at it this way. Suppose you're invited to a big Star Wars costume party, but you think Star Trek was a better series. So you spend hundreds of dollars on an authentic Starfleet uniform and detailed Klingon makeup. Do you think you'll win the costume contest? Or do you think you'll be remembered as the dork that wore the wrong costume to the party? That's what an application dressed up like Windows 7 looks like on Windows XP. Only in the eyes of many people who still refuse to upgrade beyond XP it's more like you're wearing a bank robber costume at a World Trade Center memorial.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Of course, modern application design is enjoying bucking these trends and experimenting with other stuff, so perhaps I'm taking too hard a line. WPF's styles provide a good way to do application theming and allows you to change themes on the fly. WPF Themes is a good example project, though it hardly looks active. The answer for WinForms is still, "You have to write it yourself or purchase something that enables theming/skinning." WinForms has no built-in support for styling its controls.