Install Themes In Windows 7 [How To]

Windows 7 is beautiful. But if you would like to jazz it up with third party custom themes, you need to follow some simple steps. Once you patch up Windows 7, you will be able to install your favorite Christmas Theme or the recent blockbuster New Moon theme.

Like Windows XP and Windows Vista, Windows 7 too doesn’t allow installing third party visual style theme. In Windows 7, the three system files need to be patched – uxtheme.dll, themeui.dll and themeservice.dll.

Here are the steps to do this:

1. Download Universal Theme Patcher

2. The download is a zip file. Extract it and you will see 2 exe files in the folder- UniversalThemePatcher-x64.exe (64-Bit) and UniversalThemePatcher-x86.exe (32-Bit).

3. If you are running 32-Bit version of Windows 7, double-click UniversalThemePatcher-x86.exe. For 64-Bit version of Windows 7, double-click on UniversalThemePatcher-x64.exe.

4. In the following Dialog, choose language and click OK

5. The program will take few seconds to open next window. Wait till it displays the below screen shot. Then click "Yes".

6. In the following window click on "Patch" button in all the 3 sections.

7. After patching all the three files, the program asks you to restart your computer.

8. Restart the computer.

That’s it. Now your Windows 7 is ready to take custom themes.

1. To apply a theme, copy the .theme file and it’s theme folder to "C:WindowsResourcesThemes". We assume that Windows is installed in C drive.

2. Double-click on the copied .theme file to apply it.

The theme also appears in the Desktop Personalization window.