1. What is a desktop theme?
2. Where do I find themes?
3. Where do I find good
themes?
4. How do I download themes?
5. How do I install themes?
6. How do I find a particular
theme?
7. How do I create themes?
8. What is the difference
between Plus! 95 and Plus! 98 themes?
9. Can I use Plus! 95 themes
in Plus! 98 and vice versa?
10. Can I use a theme designed
for a different screen resolution?
11. How do I restore the
original startup/shutdown screens?
12. Solutions to other known
problems
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. Where do I find themes?
There are lots of theme sites on the web. They can roughly be
divided into five basic categories:
a) Sites that store themes.
Theme
World
Custom
Effects
Windows
95 Themes Collection
WinThemes.com
Tucows Free
Themes
b) Sites that offer vast collections of organized
theme links.
Trish's
Theme Terrain
THE
UNLEASHED
Desktop
Heaven
Themez
Plus Themes
c) Sites that offer a limited amount of themes,
often produced by the site owner(s).
Vanessa Zoe
Desktop Themes
Themes by Gates
OUIJA'S DESKTOP THEMES!
Cap'n Jim's Homepage
themes you never knew existed...
Choc Fiction
Judd's
Theme Bar
Digital
Themes
Theme
Park
Ill-Tempered
d) Sites that offer theme reviews with ratings,
previews and written commentary.
The Theme
Doctor
Dream
Theme
Themez
Quality Desktop
Themes
e) Sites that offer collections of links to
different theme sites.
Desktop Themes Ring
Plus!
Themes Ring
Theme
Central Station
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3. Where do I find good themes?
In fact most themes on the web are of rather poor quality. It
would be safe to say that about one theme in five is worthwhile,
and about one in ten is really good. If you are looking for high
quality themes you should consider visiting a theme review site.
That way you'll at least know what you're downloading. Most high
quality themes on the web are available on the review sites.
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4. 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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5. 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 or XTheme Manager.
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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6. How do I find a particular theme?
If you are looking for a theme based on some particular subject,
but can't find it, try the following:
a) First try searching the largest theme sites, e. g. Themez, THE UNLEASHED,
Desktop
Heaven.
b) If you still can't find it, try searching AltaVista
with the following commands:
+"desktop themes" +subject (e. g. titanic, jurassic
park, starcraft)
+"desktop theme" +titanic
+themes +"jurassic park"
+desktop +theme +starcraft
c) You can request themes at Theme World.
d) You could also create your own theme.
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7. 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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8. 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.
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9. 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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10. 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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11. 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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12. Solutions to other known problems
a) MPEG Layer-3 sound files
b) Jpeg filter with Office 97 and FrontPage 98
a) Some people experience problems with
MPEG Layer-3 format sound files. The newer version of NetShow
(MediaPlayer) doesn't seem to install the MPEG Layer-3 codec to
function properly for all applications. If this is the case you
can download the older NetShow v2.0 package. If you wish to apply a
newer player later on, just install the newer version on top of
NetShow v2.0.
As an alternative, you can also download a small (233k) MPEG
Layer-3 Codec installer. This software has been thoroughly
tested on several system configurations. However, since this
codec installer doesn't produce the same sound quality as
NetShow, this alternative should be considered only by those who
experience insurmountable problems with NetShow.
To install NetShow 2.0 in Windows 98, you don't need to download
anything. Make sure your Windows98 CD is nearby and: (1) Click
Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and double-click
on Add/Remove Programs; (2) Click the Windows Setup tab, click
Multimedia, and then click Details; (3) Select the Audio
Compression check box and the Microsoft NetShow Player 2.0 check
box; (4) Click the Apply button, and then follow the instructions
that appear on your screen.
b) If you install Office 97 or FrontPage
98, this will cause a conflict with the themes.exe jpeg filter.
Themes with wallpapers in jpg format will not install. You will
get the following error message: "Themes caused an invalid
page fault in module Themes.exe at 014F:0040ABC6".
To solve this problem, download the updated themes.exe.
Just replace your current themes.exe located in the Plus!
directory.
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