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Windows 7 to add slideshow wallpapers, theme gallery and theme packs

Don’t worry Windows 95 Plus! enthusiasts, Microsoft hasn’t forgotten about you and your themes. A recently updated MSDN Library document shows that Microsoft hasn’t just brushed themes under the carpet, but instead dusted it off, added some new polish and is even putting it under the spotlight.

The document “Creating and Installing Theme Files” has been updated with several “additions to the .theme file format were made for Windows 7″. They include:

Themes
The [Theme] section of the file contains the following two attributes:

Icon=module,-iconId (example: themeui.dll,-123) or pathToIcon (example: MyTheme.ico)
Windows 7 and later. The icon to show in the theme gallery, either an embedded resource or a path to an .ico file. Paths are relative to the directory of the .theme file.

Desktop Appearance
You can create custom wallpaper for the desktop and specify a path to the graphics file. Additionally, this section of the .theme file can specify whether the screen saver is active. The following example shows how to do modify the desktop appearance. Windows 7 and later: If the slideshow is active, the path can be a path to a folder containing multiple images, or a colon-delimited list of image files.

Windows 7 and later. The following attribute is set to “1″ to enable a slide show as the wallpaper.
Slideshow=1

Theme Packs
Windows 7 and later. A theme pack is a .cab file that contains not only the .theme file but also the files needed to implement the theme on another computer, such as sound files and images. Users can create theme packs through the Personalization application in Control Panel.

This sudden rejuvenation in themes excites me and puzzles me at the same time. On one hand, I have a lot of fond memories with themes in Windows 95 Plus! - the sound effects would always be so bizarre. On the other, OS GUI customization is becoming much less common - much more so in Vista than compared to XP.

Personally, the idea of using a third party visual style in Vista has never even crossed the mind and I’m someone who wouldn’t think twice about using a custom style in XP. Does anyone else still use custom styles or even custom themes (cursors, sound effects)?