Two Windows 7 Themes Go Live
If you compare the dedication that Microsoft puts into providing Windows 7 users with new personalization options to previous efforts, you will notice that the Redmond company seems to have changed it considerable.
Windows XP and Windows Vista users both received less than a dozen official themes since their release. Windows 7 users on the other hand are constantly bombarded with new themes and wallpapers that Microsoft publishes to the Windows Personalization Gallery.
This can be attributed partly to the theme engine changes in Windows 7 which make it easier to produce and distribute themes but also to the change in strategy.
The themes that Microsoft publishes regularly are light themes. They don't change core interface elements of Windows, only wallpapers, colors and several other minor things.
Microsoft has released two additional Windows 7 themes in the past days. The Czech Spring and Life themes are both available for download at the official theme gallery.
The Czech Spring theme adds eight new desktop wallpapers to the operating system while the Life seem adds another five.
All wallpapers are offered in a resolution of 1920x1200. Windows 7 users who want to download them may visit the Windows Personalization Gallery to do so. The themes can be installed by double-clicking them once they have been downloaded to the local computer system.
When you visit Microsoft's personalization gallery nowadays you will find a large selection of themes available for download here. While they are optimized for Windows 7 and 8, it is possible to download them to other operating systems to at least use the included wallpapers on those systems as well.
About a dozen theme groups are listed in the sidebar. Windows 7 users should check the compatible with Windows 7 group there to make sure the themes they download are compatible with that operating system. Windows 8 users on the other hand can download all themes as the system can load Windows 7 and Windows 8 themes without issues.
I think it’s kind of weird Microsoft calls them themes as all they change are the wallpapers and perhaps some colors and sounds. I would absolutely love to see my XP Silver theme in Windows 7! :-)
I think it’s funny how this crap is considered “personalization.” It’s the same crap it’s always been, a small variation on title bar color and some wallpaper and sounds. Really you could “theme” more extensively in Windows 95 and what makes me REALLY mad is that to get that flexibility you need to run the “classic” UI which is ugly as hell. What I’m taking about is ACTUAL User Interface colors, for those of us with eye disorders or who simply hate staring at brutal bright white screens all day we have to resort to classic non-themed UI to go dark or use “unsigned” themes that still suffer from UI problems with hard coded font colors etc from apps that assume you are running the nightmare BS that is white backgrounds and black font crap we’re expected to think is a “personalized theme.”