• PC World
• »Software
• »Operating Systems

Can I Jazz Up Win 2000 With Themes?

Q: How do I jazz up my Windows 2000 desktop with themes, like I did with Windows 9x? I can't find Desktop Themes in the Control Panel.

A: Windows 2000 supports desktop themes, those collections of wallpaper, icons, pointers, and sounds that millions use to personalize and humanize their analytical, cold-hearted PCs. But sticking with its all-business approach, the OS doesn't go out of its way to advertise the fact that you can slap goofy faces on its GUI.

Dig into the WINNT\System32 folder, find the application file themes.exe, then click to run it. The familiar Desktop Themes interface appears. You can load (and preview) additional themes by clicking the Other button in the Themes: field, then rooting through the hard drive to locate and open a theme file.

But since Windows 2000 comes with only one theme, the oh-so-conventional "Current Windows settings," you'll first need to acquire a theme or two. PCWorld.com's Downloads library offers scads; other sources include Web sites such as ThemeWorld.com.

Older themes that carry the extensions .the or .thm are incompatible with Windows 2000. Fortunately, there's an easy fix: Use Windows Explorer to rename the file so it has a .theme extension instead.