1. What is a desktop theme?
2. How do I download themes?
3. How do I install themes?
4. How do I create themes?
5. What is the difference between Plus! 95 and Plus! 98 themes?
6. Can I use Plus! 95 themes in Plus! 98 and vice versa?
7. Can I use a theme designed for a different screen resolution?
8. How do I restore the original startup/shutdown screens?
1. What is a desktop theme?
A desktop theme is a convenient way of converting several aspects of the desktop environment at the same time. A (complete) theme consists of cursors, icons, sound files, wallpaper, color scheme and an installation file with the extension ".theme".
Sometimes themes also include screensavers and startup/shutdown screens.
Desktop themes are usually based on some specific topic, e. g. a movie, a band or a game. There are thousands of themes available on the web, ranging from top quality professional creations to amateurish crap.
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2. How do I download themes?
On most sites the download instructions are very simple. You usually just click on the theme name.
Sometimes servers are very busy, resulting in slow or even stagnant downloads. To solve this problem, get an application called GetRight. It allows you to resume downloads. So if a server starts giving you a hard time when you've downloaded a portion of a file, you can simply abort the download and resume it later (i. e. without having to download the file all over again).
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3. How do I install themes?
Themes are almost without exception stored in zip format. This means you'll need a 32 bit version of WinZip to extract themes.
To install themes, you'll need to use some theme application. Microsoft Plus! is the most common and probably the best application. But there are several other programs that work
just as well, e. g. Desktop Themes.
Most themes are very easy to install. Just unzip them to your theme directory and install. But some themes are improperly coded. The most common mistake made is that the .theme file refers to directories or files that are missing or have nothing to do with the theme in question. Luckily, such mistakes are very easy to fix. A .theme file is simply a large batch file, i. e. a text file assigning paths to different files. A .theme file simply tells windows where to find wallpaper, cursors, icons, etc. If you open it in Notepad, you will almost immediately grasp the structure of the code. If a .theme file contains errors you can edit it very easily to fix it.
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4. How do I create themes?
There is a brilliant theme creation tutorial available on the web, created by Joey Holt.
A comprehensive tutorial is also available at Tucows Free Themes.
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5. What is the difference between Plus! 95 and Plus! 98 themes?
Plus! 95 and Plus! 98 themes are basically very similar. There are however a few important differences:
*Plus! 98 themes have more advanced color schemes.
*Plus! 98 themes have an additional icon for the "My Documents" folder.
*Plus! 98 themes have a different icon code. This is the only compatibility problem.
*Plus! 98 themes usually include Win98 webview images.
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6. Can I use Plus! 95 themes in Plus! 98 and vice versa?
Plus! 95 themes work fine in Plus! 98. However, the icons of a Plus! 98 theme will not load in Plus! 95. This problem is very easy to fix however. If you have a Plus! 98 theme and want the icons to work in Plus! 95, you can edit the .theme file in Notepad to fix the
problem.
A Plus! 98 .theme file icon code looks like this:
[Software\Classes\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\DefaultIcon]
DefaultValue=%ThemeDir%Theme My Computer.ico,0
A Plus! 95 .theme file icon code looks like this:
[CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\DefaultIcon] DefaultValue=%ThemeDir%Theme My
Computer.ico,0
So just remove all instances of the line "Software\Classes\" from the icon code,
and the icons will load.
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7. Can I use a theme designed for a different screen resolution?
Windows does a really terrible job of stretching or shrinking images to screen size. So if you want to use a theme with a wallpaper in a different size than your screen resolution, you should either adjust your screen resolution, or resize the wallpaper with an image
editor. The perfect image editor is ThumbsPlus.
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8. How do I restore the original startup/shutdown screens?
The startup screen is called "Logo.sys" and is located on the root directory C:\. Just delete it and the original windows startup screen will appear the next time you boot. The two shutdown screens are called "Logow.sys" and "Logos.sys",
and are located in the windows directory C:\WINDOWS\. Just replace the current files in your windows directory with the original (English) Windows95 or Windows98 screens. If you have installed Plus98 you'll need the Plus98 logo screens.
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