Windows 7 comes with location based themes, one of which gets activated during installation when you input your language and location. For instance, if your location is US, Windows 7 shows the summer landscape theme for US.
You can see the default active theme by right clicking on the desktop and choosing "Change desktop background". This will show all themes including the ones you have downloaded and installed.
But did you know that Windows 7 comes with lots of other location themes which actually stay hidden. These themes are for palaces like Australia, Canada, Britain, South Africa and a lot more which are not activated and so not available for use. Let's see how you can unlock them.
- First click on the Start orb and in the search box, add this location and press "Enter".
C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT
If you have installed Windows in a different drive than "C", use that instead.
- The MCT folder will open and you can see folders for different locations.
- Open any of the directories and open the "Theme" directory inside it. You will find a theme file inside.
- To activate the theme, just double click on this theme file. The theme will get added to your Windows 7 and the "Personalization" control panel will now open showing the new theme in the "My themes" section ready to be used.
You can add the rest of the hidden themes in the same way one by one. Its a mystery why Microsoft included all these great themes in every windows installation, but chose to activate only one. Although activating these themes one by one is not a fun task, the effort is worth it.
So please try out and let me know as comments below.