Customize Windows With Theme Packs -- What It is ?

Everyone of us do get bored with the same Desktop Wallpaper, color combinations, sounds which we are keep seeing and hearing it for I don't know how many years. In Windows 7 & 8, you can automatically change your Computer Wallpaper, Taskbar, Borders color, Sounds and Screen Savers (all at once) by simply installing one single file - THEMES. (Don't worry it's not a software installation).

Let me show you few snapshots of amazing desktops, so you then will have a clear vision what I am talking about and how you can change your simple Windows into a exciting one as shown below.

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Don't get too much excited after looking at these pictures. These are quite an advance level of windows customizations, which I will explain you in my future articles.

So What Is A Theme?

Consider Theme as a small magical box, which contains Furniture for your Home, Paint for your walls and Music system for entertainment. As soon you open that box, all of these things decorate your house and give it a completely new looks.

Every Theme file is consist of following items (most of them) :

1. Desktop Wallpapers
2. Settings for Taskbar, Start Menu and Border Colors
3. Sounds
4. A Screen Saver
5. Icons

By Installing a Unique Theme in your computer, it will automatically make the changes in your Windows wallpaper, sound, icons and colors, which gives it a completely new look.

How To Change Default Theme In Windows

By default (when you install Windows), it comes with some pre-installed Themes. Let me show how you can easily change the looks of your Windows by using those pre-installed Themes. (Than it will be easy for you to understand the concept of Themes as well)

Before I make changes in my computer, let me show you my Desktop, Taskbar and Start Menu.

 

Now Right Click anywhere on your Desktop and select Personalize.

In Personalization in Control Panel, there are three types of theme sections.

My Themes : Themes that you've customized, saved, or downloaded. Any time you make changes to a theme, the new settings appear here as an unsaved theme.

Aero Themes : Windows themes you can use to personalize your computer. All of the Aero themes include Aero glass effects, and many of them include a desktop background slide show. For more information about Aero, see What is the Aero desktop experience?

Basic and High Contrast Themes : Themes that are designed to help improve your computer's performance or make items on your screen easier to see. The Basic and High Contrast themes don't include Aero glass effects.

In order to Apply any Theme, click (or double click) any of the Theme under Aero Themes or High Contrast Themes, and you will see that Windows will immediately apply those changes everywhere. For example, I selected Scenes Themes and as soon I clicked it, Windows made the changes immediately (as you can see below)

As you can see that my Wallpaper is changed and so does Taskbar, Border color and Transparency in Start Menu. 

If you don't like the Wallpaper and want to change it, but don't want to change the other colors and sounds, than you can do that by clicking the Desktop Background at the Personalization page.

You can click the Browse button to locate a Wallpaper from your computer or you can select it from the given options.

Just select any of the Wallpaper and click Save Changes button at the bottom right side. You can see that my desktop wallpaper has been changed, but the color combination is still the same.

How To Install Themes In Windows

After having an idea about Themes in Windows, now let me show how you can download a basic Windows Theme (BATMAN Theme) and how you can easily install it in your windows.

1. Download Batman Theme by Clicking Here

2. Double click the downloaded file.

3. And it will immediately apply the changes in your Windows.

4. It's as simple as that.

Important Notes

Most of the Windows Themes which you download from Internet, comes with many different Wallpapers. For example, the one which you have downloaded just now, it has installed almost 14 Batman wallpapers in your computer. To check them out, click Desktop Background at the Personalization page.

Now you can see all the different wallpapers which came along with this Theme. This theme is configured to switch between these wallpapers after every 30 min.

You can change the time by clicking the time settings or if you just want a single wallpaper to display all the time, than simply select any of the Wallpaper from the list and click Save Changes button.

This Theme has also changed my Taskbar and Start Menu color, but the icons and sounds are still the same. It depends which Theme you have downloaded and what options does it have.

Last Words

Windows Customization is very simple, but if you want to make it more unique and customize it more, than you have to use some additional software which we will see in my future articles. I will also post weekly 5 of my best Windows Themes, which you can download it free.

I hope I have clarified most of the confusion related to Windows Themes and it will help you to do advance level of customization as well. Don't forget to leave your Comments / Feedback below.