How To Unlock Hidden Regional Themes in Windows 7?

Windows 7 has some gorgeous Aero themes to spice up your desktop. However depending on your locale, some regional themes remain hidden and are not available to you by default. Want to add more themes to your Windows 7 Desktop? Here are the steps to find the hidden themes and add them to Windows 7 Personalization screen.

1. Open ‘Folder and Search Options’ (from the ‘Organize’ tab of Windows Explorer).

In this window, make sure that

• ‘Show hidden files, folders, and drives’ is selected and
• ‘Hide protected operating system files’ is unchecked.

2. Now you need to find the hidden themes.  For this, open the Windows System folder (C:\Windows). Look for the folder ‘Globalization’ and open it.  You should be able to see the folder MCT.

3. Open MCT.You will find country specific MCT folders such as MCT-AU (Australia), MCT-ZA (South Africa), MCT-CA(Canada), MCT-GB (Great Britain) etc.

4. Open any of these country MCT folders to find the .theme file for that country. In the below image you can see AU.theme, a theme which brings Australia’s rustic beauty to your desktop.

5. Double click on the theme file. This will set the theme as your current desktop theme and also also add it to the list of themes in the Personalization screen under the My Themes section.

From now on you can access the added themes any time from the Personalization window. (Right click on desktop and select Personalization to open this window). Make sure you revert the Hidden and System file Options that you have set in Step 1.

Enjoy the beauty of foreign countries from your desktop!