One thing that OS X has always excelled at in comparison to Microsoft’s widely used desktop OS, are the platform’s aesthetics. Windows has a long way to go before it can even remotely catch up to the beautiful graphics and rendering of OS X, and that is one of the primary reasons for the existence of several methods, skin packs, tips and software that help Windows users emulate some OS X features on their PCs.
One of the cool things in OS X is the availability of on-screen volume controls with fade-in fade-out effects that look really neat when you lower or increase the output from your speakers using hardware keys. A similar HUD has become commonplace for Windows notebooks as well, thanks to OEM software that comes bundled with these machines, but what if you’re lacking such an option by default? It might not be something big, but in case you’re interested in getting a similar solution on your Windows 8.1 machine, 3RVX comes to rescue.
It’s a really small piece of freeware that will quietly sit in the Windows System Tray and will provide an on-screen volume slider that looks exactly like OS X’s on your desktop. The slider itself can be placed anywhere and can be made to fade out when you don’t need it. Hit the volume keys on your keyboard, and it springs back to action. In case you don’t have such a keyboard, there are configurable hotkeys, alongside language options, configuration parameters, automatically launching the software at system start up, and choosing from a variety of skins that will change the HUD even further.
The skins add more charm to the whole experience, because you can continue changing the look and feel if you don’t like the OS X one. However, if you’re looking for a true OS X experience, we’d recommend simply installing 3RVX and not changing any settings – really – and you get the OS X look.
While the focus of this article is Windows 8.1, it’s to be duly noted that this will work fine on previous versions of Windows as well. You can give 3RVX a show by downloading it from here.
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