How To: Unlock Hidden Regional Themes In Windows 7
Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 7 has 5 themes by default, but Windows 7 beta 1 build 7000 onwards has several hidden & locked themes provided for regional countries such as Australia, Canada, Great Britain, United States and South Africa.Since these hidden themes are installed along with your Windows 7 installation, you can easily unlock/unhide these hidden Windows 7 Themes for regional countries.
To unlock Windows 7 hidden regional themes:
- Open Windows Explorer and click on Organize, and select Folder and Search Options.
- Go to View tab and select Show hidden files, folders and drivers and uncheck Hide protected operating system files (Recommended).
- If prompted with confirmation(UAC), click Yes.
- Click OK.
- Then,navigate to C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT.
- There are five folders in the name with format MCT-XX (where XX is AU, CA, GB, US, or ZA) which represents globalization settings for each region.
- Open a MCT-XX folder for the regional theme that you want(AU, CA and ZA regions all have the same themes though).
- Open the Theme folder in the selected region folder.
- Double click on the XX.theme file to apply the theme to the Windows 7 desktop system.
- Hide the Windows 7 System and Protected Operating System files.
- Enjoy your new regional themes!
Note:
- Once you select a .theme file, Windows 7 will save it so that you will be able to change or select this theme again from within the normal Personalization window location.
- Alternatively, go to \Windows\winsxs, and search for *.theme. Double click on the first 5 themes with name in the format of XX as listed above to apply and save the theme.
Alternate Method:
- Open Notepad editor from Windows 7 start menu.
- Copy and paste the following code into the new text document:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\InstalledThemes\MCT]
“%windir%\\Globalization\\MCT\\MCT-AU\\Theme\\AU.theme”=””
“%windir%\\Globalization\\MCT\\MCT-CA\\Theme\\CA.theme”=””
“%windir%\\Globalization\\MCT\\MCT-GB\\Theme\\GB.theme”=””
“%windir%\\Globalization\\MCT\\MCT-US\\Theme\\US.theme”=””
“%windir%\\Globalization\\MCT\\MCT-ZA\\Theme\\ZA.theme”=””
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Wallpapers\KnownFolders\Windows Wallpapers\MergeFolders]
“%windir%\\Globalization\\MCT\\MCT-AU\\Wallpaper”=””
“%windir%\\Globalization\\MCT\\MCT-CA\\Wallpaper”=””
“%windir%\\Globalization\\MCT\\MCT-GB\\Wallpaper”=””
“%windir%\\Globalization\\MCT\\MCT-US\\Wallpaper”=””
“%windir%\\Globalization\\MCT\\MCT-ZA\\Wallpaper”=””
- Save the document as UnlockRegionalThemes.reg.
- Merge the new file into the Windows 7 registry by right-clicking it, selecting Open With, and finally clicking Registry Editor.
- Windows 7 might prompt you with the UAC(User Account Control) acknowledgment window. Click on the “Continue” button.
After this you will be able to change or select the unlocked regional themes from the normal Personalization window in Windows 7 desktop context menu.
Or
Download, extract, and double-click on UnlockRegionalThemes.reg to merge the registry values into the Windows registry to enable/unlock hidden regioal themes in Windows7.
Unlock Hidden Regional Themes(Download)
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Written by Tony on April 23rd, 2009 with
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