Windows 7 Themes On XP And Vista PCs

There are several beautiful available for Windows 7, both official Windows 7 themes from Microsoft and unofficial Windows 7 themes.  Out of the box these themes don’t work on Windows XP or Windows Vista machines, but with a few tweaks you can get Windows 7 themes to work on Windows XP and Windows Vista machines.

Windows 7 themes use the .themepack extension which Windows XP and Windows Vista cannot understand.  To extra the files from a downloaded Windows 7 theme just install the free 7-Zip utility that can handle the .themepack extension, and use it to extract your files to a folder on your PC

Windows Vista Users

If you are running Aero, doubleclick the .theme file in the new folder you just created.  This will change your windows border to the one in the new theme as well as your wallpaper to the default wallpaper in the theme, although this will disappear when you reboot so you will have to:

    go to the theme folder
    click on the wallpaper you want to use and select ’set as Desktop Background’

Windows XP Users

XP doesn’t support Aero, so to set your wallpaper:

   go to the theme folder
   click on the wallpaper you want to use and select ’set as Desktop Background’

To add any windows 7 theme icons:

Windows Vista:
    Right-click anywhere on the desktop, choose ‘Personalize’ and then ‘Change Desktop Icons’
    Select the items you which to change, click ‘Change Icons’ and browse to the location of the new icons

Windows XP:
    Right-click anywhere on the desktop, select ‘Properties’ and choose ‘Customize Desktop’ under the Desktop tab
    Select the items you wish to change, click ‘Change Icon’ and browse to the location of the new icons


Cursors
    Copy the Windows 7 cursor files (.cur or .ani) to C:\Windows\Cursors on XP or Vista, and then apply the new set using the mouse settings under Control Panel.