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?
9. 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. 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). Another outstanding download application is FileHound.
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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 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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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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9. 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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