gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials » microsoft themes http://www.ghacks.net A technology news blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:51:26 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Four New Windows 7 Themes Released By Microsofthttp://www.ghacks.net/2009/12/25/four-new-windows-7-themes-released-by-microsoft/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/12/25/four-new-windows-7-themes-released-by-microsoft/#comments Fri, 25 Dec 2009 08:01:33 +0000 Martin Brinkmann http://www.ghacks.net/?p=21788 Microsoft has released four new themes for their latest operating system Windows 7. Some users who have not made the switch yet might be wondering how it can be that Microsoft seems to be pumping out themes for that operating system but supported their operating system in years with only a handful.

Two aspects play a role. There is the new and improved theme engine in Windows 7 that makes it much easier to create and share themes. Anyone can do it as a new theme is automatically created when a user changes the wallpaper of the system. It is possible to add additional wallpapers to the theme and change the colors, sounds and other elements.

The second reason for this seems to be a change in strategy. Microsoft seems to have realized that these things make a lot of users happy. That in turn is good for Microsoft as it changes the perception of Microsoft.

The four new themes have been released at the Personalization website over at Microsoft. All themes can be downloaded from that website free of charge. Themes can be installed on the operating system with a simple double-click on the downloaded file.

The themes as you can see consist of a dog, cat, summit and Christmas theme. Check out our Windows 7 themes collection over at our Windows 7 website for more themes not only for Windows 7 but also previous Microsoft operating systems.

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/12/25/four-new-windows-7-themes-released-by-microsoft/feed/ 6 Another Signed Windows XP Theme Emergeshttp://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/09/another-signed-windows-xp-theme-emerges/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/09/another-signed-windows-xp-theme-emerges/#comments Thu, 09 Oct 2008 08:30:59 +0000 Martin Brinkmann http://www.ghacks.net/?p=7511 Windows XP users have not really seen a lot of love theme-wise from Microsoft since the release of the operating system. A measly handful of official themes have been released by Microsoft and the trend seems to continue for Windows Vista users. There is not really a reason to not to supply customers with fresh themes for their operating systems. If you look on the Internet you find many resources that cater to the needs of users who want to change the default themes.

Official themes on the other hand have the advantage of being signed meaning that there is no need to tamper with the uxtheme.dll file that protects the operating system from unofficial themes. Vishal over at Ask VG discovered a new signed Windows XP theme that is also compatible with Windows Server 2003 that can be installed without changing system files.

He discovered the theme in the Windows Embedded Standard CTP Refresh distribution and provided download links to it. The theme is supplied as a self extracting executable that installs the theme in the right location in Windows. The theme can then be selected from the Themes tab in the Display Properties.

windows xp theme

The main benefit of this theme is that it is signed. Many users will probably still prefer unsigned themes because of the choice of thousands of themes instead of the handful of signed ones. Take a look at my Windows Vista Theme Customization article for information about applying custom themes to Windows Vista or the Windows XP Theme Royal Noir which is also signed.

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