Totally transparent taskbar, removed highlights?

[oh gosh]

Hello all!

I'm working on getting a nice minimalist setup going, and it's pretty good so far. The one thing I just can't seem to work out is managing the transparency on the taskbar. Ideally, I would have it absolutely transparent -- Windows only seems to let you go as high as about 70% -- and without highlights on the opened apps (this way, a pinned icon would look exactly the same as a currently-running icon).

Do I need to buy Windowblinds or something to get this going, or can I tweak my way there normally? If someone could help me out with this, it'd be awesome.

And while we're here, just as an aside: is it too much to hope that any of you fine ladies and gentleman have come across a nice set of clean/minimalist icons for popular programs? I mean things like Word, Firefox, WLM, Windows Explorer, etc...

 

[AceShinobi]

Token is a pretty popular icon set made by brsev, it can be found Token by ~brsev on deviantART

Instead of making your own theme, have you tried out Soft 1.8?

 

[oh gosh]

That icon set looks beautiful, thanks for that.

And I'm sorry, but what's Soft 1.8? I tried Googling it, but didn't find anything related.

 

[oh gosh]

I applied all of those icons, my taskbar looks much cleaner and nicer now. Thanks a lot! Now to work out how to get this one onto the start button -- I'm reading the thread here, but it's gargantuan.

 

[winsev]

Soft 1.8 is a popular theme that gets rid of the highlight.

Soft7 1.8 for Windows 7 by ~AP-GRAPHIK on deviantART