Tools of the trade

Okay so you want to make a theme for Vista right? Well your going to need some applications first.

Heres what I use:

Resource Editor
A must to get the graphics out of the needed files.

PE Explorer
This is one of the most used tools you will use, this program isn't free (I'm sure you can find a way around that) but it's the best I've used, and it's what I use.
Alternatives:
ResHack


Graphics Editor
If you're going to be making graphics for themes you're obviously going to need a graphics editor, here's a few you could use:

Adobe Photoshop: The best graphics editor on the market and has been for a long time, but it comes at a price, Photoshop is insanely expensive (but also easily obtainable). It's what I use since it has the best UI I've used on any graphics editing application. (Windows and Mac only)

GIMP: The open source alternative to Photoshop, the price? Free of course. This is good in someways but The GIMP has some problems. For starters the terrible and confusing UI, which makes doing simple tasks frustrating sometimes, but for the price and for it's feature set GIMP is defiantly one of the best image editors after Photoshop. (For all platforms Windows, Mac, Linux)

Hex Editor
Not needed often, but comes in handy when editing the VARIANT file in a theme.

XVI32: A lightweight free hex editor that will do what you need to edit whatever files you need to. It's what I use. (Windows Only)

Must Have Utilities
These are applications you MUST have if you want to successfully create a Vista theme.

Alpha Image Converter: You need this make proper PNGs that will work in Vista (see my post called "creating proper transparent aero compatible pngs") Now I couldn't find who created this little utility since I found it on a forum, but I've uploaded it and you can download it by clicking the name of it.

And that's basically all you need to start making a Vista skin.