AeroThemePlasma

HIATUS NOTICE: This is a long overdue announcement, but development will slow down significantly as a result of real life priorities I have to take care of first. Estimated time until I continue development is unknown, but don't expect anything significant in the following few months, until August, probably. Thank you for your patience and support.

Microsoft® Windows™ is a registered trademark of Microsoft® Corporation. This name is used for referential use only, and does not aim to usurp copyrights from Microsoft. Microsoft Ⓒ 2025 All rights reserved. All resources belong to Microsoft Corporation.

Introduction

This is a project which aims to recreate the look and feel of Windows 7 as much as possible on KDE Plasma, whilst adapting the design to fit in with modern features provided by KDE Plasma and Linux.

ATP is in constant development and testing, it has been tested on:

• Arch Linux x64 and other Arch derivatives
• Plasma 6.7.4, KDE Frameworks 6.28.0, Qt 6.11.1
• 96 DPI scaling, multi monitor
• X11, Wayland*

*AeroThemePlasma currently lacks full Wayland support, which may result in Wayland-specific issues. Proper Wayland support is planned for Plasma 6.8

This software comes "as is" without warranty of any kind. It's always recommended to make backups of your system just in case. I am not responsible for broken systems, please proceed with caution.

The Plasma 5 version of ATP is available as a tag in this repository, however it is unmaintained and no longer supported.

If you find my work valuable consider donating:

AeroThemePlasma and all of its AeroShell components are available as read-only GitHub mirrors.

Installation

See INSTALL.md for a detailed installation guide.

Credits

Huge thanks to everyone who helped out along the way by contributing, testing, providing suggestions and generally making ATP possible:

Forked code

• Intika's Digital Clock Lite plasmoid
• Adhe, oKcerG and SnoutBug for making SevenStart possible
• Zren's Win7 Show Desktop plasmoid
• Mirko Gennari, DrGordBord and bionegative for making SevenBlack possible
• DrGordBord's Windows 7 Kvantum theme
• taj-ny's kwin-effects-forceblur

Contributors

• Souris-2d07 for making the following:
  • Cursor theme
  • Plymouth theme (old)
  • SDDM theme
  • KWin decoration theme
  • Most KWin C++ effects
  • Other minor KWin features and scripts
• That Linux Dude Dominic Hayes for making the following:
  • Lock screen UI
  • Icon theme
• catpswin56 for help with SevenTasks, Sound Mixer plasmoid, Gadgets menu, Polkit UAC skin, as well as many more contributions
• QuinceTart10 and Gamer95875 for making the sound themes
• (In collaboration with) kfh83, TorutheRedFox and ALTaleX for figuring out accurate Aero glass blur and colorization effects
• AngelBruni for contributing several SVG textures, most notably the clock in DigitalClockLite Seven
• ricewind012 for .bashrc Microsoft Windows header
• furkrn for creating and maintaining the Plymouth theme
• IcyGuidance for designing the notification badges in SevenTasks

Special Thanks

• MondySpartan for inspiring the notification design

Contributing

If you with to contribute in any way, please read CONTRIBUTING for more details.

Cool projects you should really check out

• Geckium by AngelBruni
• Aero UserChrome by Souris (Geckium in combination with Aero UserChrome works well with AeroThemePlasma)
• VistaThemePlasma by catpswin56
• LonghornThemePlasma by catpswin56
• VB1ThemePlasma by catpswin56
• Harmony by catpswin56
• SMOD Themes by catpswin56, a collection of themes that can be used with the SMOD window decoration theme
• X6Shell by catpswin56
• Ice2K.sys by 0penrc
• AeroThemePlasma-Nix by nyakase

Vista variant

Initially I wanted to make a Vista variant of AeroThemePlasma but catpswin56 beat me to it, use VistaThemePlasma if you want a Vista theme.

Aero apps for AeroThemePlasma

To install most of these, the commands to run after cloning are: mkdir build; cd build; cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr; sudo make install.

Complete re-creations

• Linux Explorer by ActuallyAridan
• Control Panel by ActuallyAridan
• Device Manager by ActuallyAridan
• Windows 7 Minesweeper by ActuallyAridan
• TuxManager (task manager) by benapetr
• Gadgets by catpswin56
• execbin (run dialog) by catpswin56
• LinVer (version dialog)

KDE app forks

• Aero Dolphin by Albert Tomanek
• Aero GwenView by Albert Tomanek
• Aero KolourPaint by Albert Tomanek

Other Aero Apps

• Aero App Store by Albert Tomanek

Development Libraries

• libAeroQt -- Re-usable QtWidgets and QML components for writing Aero apps. Also contains function to make glassy window headers.
• SARibbon -- Ribbon control for Qt. Gets styled by libAeroQt.

Screenshots

Desktop

Start Menu

Clock

System Tray

Sound Mixer

Notifications

Desktop Icons

Lockscreen

Aero Peek

Alt-Tab Switcher

Colorization

Regular colorization: Basic colorization: Maximized opaque colorization:

Decorations

Decoration themes:

Gadgets

Network details

Librewolf

User Account Control (Polkit)

Taskbar