A desktop theme is a set of desktop components that go well together. Theme components
usually include the following: Wallpaper (The background image that is displayed on your
monitor), Sound events (such as when you empty your recycle bin, startup windows, etc..),
Cursors (Normal pointer, busy, wait, etc..), Icons (My Computer, Network Neighborhood and
empty and full recycle bins), Color Scheme (The different colors displayed in your window
boxes, etc..)
Added bonuses: Some Theme Author's will add a screensaver, and/or
startup/shutdown screens (the screens before and after you startup or leave windows)
You will need MS Plus! or a compatible program such as
Desktop Architect this
will apply the theme components to your desktop.
You will also need a Zip utility such as Winzip for most of the themes.
This utility will extract the theme components to a folder in your computer.
First you will need to make
sure you have a zip utility such as Winzip, and a desktop theme program such as
MS Plus!, or Desktop Architect.
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Download a
theme
-
Open up the
theme zip file you just downloaded
-
Check to see
if the theme already has the path set for you or not.
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If the path
is already set then unzip it to c:\ or whatever your hard drive is
named.
-
If the path
is not set you may need to check and see if there is a readme file
and read this to make sure you unzip your files to the correct
place.
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Most themes
will work if you unzip all the files into c:\program files\plus!\themes\
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Some themes
you need to create a folder named the same as the theme title in
c:\program files\plus!\themes\ Example: If you download a theme
called Friends you will need to unzip the theme file probably named
friends.theme into c:\program files\plus!\themes\
and unzip the rest of the files into c:\program
files\plus!\themes\Friends\
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if the theme
still doesn't work you may need to make sure your spelling is
correct and it is not spelled Freinds. If you are using Ms Plus!
desktop themes program then you can open up Ms Plus! and select the
theme from the list and then click on pointers, sounds, etc. and
then on corresponding tab such as Visuals if you are missing your
wallpaper and then click on wallpaper bitmap and look below where it
says file name this is where your wallpaper file should be to work
correctly so make sure you have it in this exact spot and named the
exact same way.
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Open up your
desktop theme program, select the theme and click on apply (some
programs called install) desktop theme.
-
If you are
still having problems after trying all this you may want to try the
program listed below to assist you in installing your themes.
It's not always this easy with as many Theme designers that we have, some are just
beginners and so the theme file will look for the theme components in certain folders in
your computer. Here is a shareware product that may be able to help you with this it's
called
Desktop Architect.
The themes are available for free because we use banner advertising to make the money
we need to pay for the web space and other programs necessary to provide these themes. We
would never charge our visitor's for something that people create for free distribution
either. We just rely on our visitor's to click on the banner advertisements. A big THANK
YOU to all who do click on the banner ads to support our site!
All the Theme Author's are at different development levels. If you have
downloaded, unzipped, and applied a theme and some things, such as the
Wallpaper or icons don't show up on your desktop then this theme file has
not been done correctly. You will need to open up MS Plus! Desktop themes
and click on pointers, sounds, etc. then go to the tab that applies to you
such as Visuals click on the file that is missing such as Wallpaper and
look at the box that says file name: in this box you will see the
directory where this theme file is looking for this theme. You need to
make sure that this file is in this same directory and is named the exact
same way.
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Please click
on desktop themes to the left and then on How-To Create.
Yes, Thanks to some great shareware products. There are programs such as
Desktop Architect
built with the technology to be able to change your desktop themes, and
wallpapers with it's scheduler.
Yes, with most Desktop theme programs such as MS Plus! you can just select the theme you
want and then to the right side of your window you can check the boxes of the theme
components you want to apply to your desktop. It will just leave whatever you previously
had instead. For instance; if you didn't want the cursors that came with the theme you
would want to uncheck the cursors box. If you want the default cursors, then first choose
windows default theme with the cursor box checked and click apply then choose the theme
you want with the cursor box unchecked and apply that theme.
If you didn't find the theme you wanted here there are many more theme sites to
look through.
You can go to my
Theme links page to
find another theme site.
You can manually install each of the components in a theme
by going into the control panel and selecting each individually. I don't
know of a utility that works with Win NT at this time.
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How do I change my
Startup/Shutdown screens back to default?
I have provided a list of Win
95/98 default Screens, so that you can return your screens back to default.
Download the files and run the exe and it will automatically install your
screens for you.
Win
95 Default
Win
95 with Plus!
Win
98 Default
Win
98 with Plus!
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