My Windows 7 Theme Pack
I've been running the Windows 7 beta for awhile now, and I'm in love! If you're relatively technical and want to take the new OS for a spin, the good news is that we've extended the beta download period until February 10, 2009. Once you have it installed, it's worth reading Tim Sneath's fantastic list of 30 Windows 7 secrets. I'm running Windows 7 on my Dell XPS desktop machine at home and on my Dell laptop at work. Even with the beta version, everything runs very smoothly and I feel a lot more productive. Plus, it's just a joy to use.
Windows 7 introduces theme packs, which are .cab files that contain all of the necessary assets to implement a theme, including sound files and images. You can find a bunch of theme packs on the Windows 7 site, and Paul Thurrott covers the basics and includes his own theme packs in his article, Windows 7 Feature Focus: Styles and Desktop Slide Shows.
As an experiment, I've created a theme pack based on my wallpaper images. It contains 20 hand-picked, nature-themed macro photos that I've taken over the years. The desktop images are configured to shuffle randomly every 30 minutes. Otherwise, the theme uses the default Windows 7 color and sound schemes.
- Download: Mike Swanson Macros Theme Pack for Windows 7 (8.59MB)
As always, comments and feedback are welcome. Drop me a note if you decide to create your own.
Update on 2/24/2010: If you (or your browser) renames the file during download, it may not be recognized by Windows 7. Simply rename the downloaded file so that it ends with ".themepack", then double-click to install.
Comments
Anonymous
January 25, 2009
This should be standard on every PC. It's now a standard on my desktop, at least. Fantastic photography, Mike.Anonymous
January 25, 2009
Just wanted to take a moment to highlight Mike Swanson’s amazing theme pack for Windows 7. Mike is aAnonymous
January 25, 2009
Thanks, Tim! I appreciate the kind words.Anonymous
January 26, 2009
Wow! these are amazing shots Mike, Really shows off the way the Superbar picks up the underlying colors as well Thanks :) Will you be taking your camera to MIX for a Macro view of the conversation?Anonymous
January 26, 2009
Hopefully by now you have Windows 7 beta 1 running on some machine and you have spotted Themes. ThemesAnonymous
January 27, 2009
Hopefully by now you have Windows 7 beta 1 running on one or more machines and you'll have spotted Themes.Anonymous
January 28, 2009
Thanks Mike absolutely stunning pics, they should be a part of the final Win 7 release. Please make it so.Anonymous
January 29, 2009
Mike, I'm downloading them now, they look great. One tiny suggestion, would you be able to mention the size of the imagees, I'm needing to download before I can figure out whether they'll work on my 1920x1200 display. Thanks!Anonymous
January 29, 2009
Great question, Harry. All of the images in this theme pack are 1920 x 1200, so you should be okay.Anonymous
February 03, 2009
As mentioned in a recent post about My Windows 7 Theme Pack , I’ve been running Beta 1 (build 7000) forAnonymous
February 04, 2009
Inspired by Mike Swanson’s post of his fantastic Windows 7 Theme Pack from a selection of his wallpaper images and the already available Windows 7 Theme packs I have jumped aboard and gone a step further than Long Zheng’s post...Anonymous
February 04, 2009
Inspired by Mike Swanson’s post of his fantastic Windows 7 Theme Pack from a selection of his wallpaper images and the already available Windows 7 Theme packs I have jumped aboard and gone a step further than Long Zheng’s post...Anonymous
February 07, 2009
This is fantastic. Thanks, Mike. How about "Dreamscene" for Win 7?Anonymous
February 08, 2009
Great theme. I love it. Thank you!Anonymous
March 30, 2009
Back in 2006 I paved (or "formatted", or "torched", or "gave " a technicalAnonymous
April 10, 2009
How can i open your themepack?Anonymous
April 22, 2009
cool i like the pic sweet job hereAnonymous
May 05, 2009
hi pal,I've faced with a serious question! does it work on windows xp?! or it has designed for win 7 ????Anonymous
May 05, 2009
Sorry, dave, but the theme was built by Windows 7 for Windows 7. Unfortunately, it won't work with older Windows versions. However, you can certainly download the wallpaper images and use them with any operating system.Anonymous
May 13, 2009
Wow nuff said what HUGGGGGGGGGE THANKS MIKEAnonymous
May 22, 2009
Hi.There..I downloaded your theme pack.I like flower.and I always use flowers on my desktop.I like it..Congratilations...:)Anonymous
May 23, 2009
hey mike thts cool mann!! thanx a million anywayAnonymous
May 29, 2009
Thanks very much MIKE !!! Great package !!!!Anonymous
May 29, 2009
Great Theme, Joy to watch !!! Thanks a ton !Anonymous
June 19, 2009
will old Vista based themes work on Windows 7?Anonymous
July 19, 2009
Thanks Mike, i have bored with all available microsoft themes packs. I have download all since microsoft only create few.Anonymous
August 25, 2009
If you read below on MSFT site, more will be release when W7 comes out next month.Anonymous
August 26, 2009
thanks for the amazing windows themes for windows 7 mike very sweet and please keep them coming my friend well doneAnonymous
September 05, 2009
buddy it looks really gr8,,,,,,,,,,,, U R A Genius......Anonymous
September 20, 2009
Thank you Mike,beautiful pictures.I love them very much.From China.Anonymous
September 30, 2009
I've been using your theme pack for months now; it is definitely my favorite so far. I adore the macro view of the world and your photographs are really well done. Thank you for creating it - the images make me happy every time I see them. And if you knew how much time I spent on my computer every day, you would know that is a heck of a lot!Anonymous
October 09, 2009
it is nice theme mike .thanX !Anonymous
October 25, 2009
The comment has been removedAnonymous
November 04, 2009
Thanks a lot. It's really nice. I'm from VietnamAnonymous
November 24, 2009
Fantastic Macro work. I visited your macro photo page. Is there any chance that you will be adding more of your photos to the 20 that are in this pack? Or possibly a feed to your macro page?Anonymous
January 03, 2010
With your pack, my Windows 7 keeps getting better and betterAnonymous
January 08, 2010
Fantastic! Thanks a lot from Athens, GreeceAnonymous
January 17, 2010
So good.. probably the best ever!!Anonymous
January 27, 2010
I've been using your theme pack for months now; it is definitely my favorite so far. I adore the macro view of the world and your photographs are really well done. Thank you for creating it - the images make me happy every time I see them. And if you knew how much time I spent on my computer every day, you would know that is a heck of a lot!Anonymous
January 28, 2010
What program am I supposed to open the file with? I have downloaded it by my computer does not recognise the file type and asking what program to use...Anonymous
January 31, 2010
so sad i can't download the theme,. there's always a message popping out like this,. "421 Too many users - please try again later." can you help me mike?Anonymous
February 22, 2010
thanks for your wonderfull theme ..they are pretty niceAnonymous
February 24, 2010
NOTE: If you (or your browser) renames the file during download, it may not be recognized by Windows 7. Simply rename the downloaded file so that it ends with ".themepack", then double-click to install.Anonymous
March 08, 2010
Thanks Mike this themepack is fantastic. Just wish that there was a page where we could all share our themepacks so that we can all enjoy each others contributions.Anonymous
April 14, 2010
I tried downloading but the FTP site keeps asking for a username/password.Anonymous
April 14, 2010
Oops...sorry about that, Derek. I updated the link, and it should work now.Anonymous
April 29, 2010
Great theme! Pretty new pictures. ThanksAnonymous
August 12, 2010
Thanks Mike absolutely stunning pics, they should be a part of the final Win 7 release. Please make it so.Anonymous
October 31, 2010
This is just the best theme for windows 7 ever !Anonymous
March 13, 2011
these photos are awesome. Thanks a lot for sharing them.... it definitely brightens up my day!