Win 95 Desktop themes

[phillip1966]

Alas more Problems in Win 95!... Installed Win95 Plus! Desktop themes into same old comp for son. Now all the Background pics in each of them(Inside your Computer,the 60's,Dangerous Creatures,etc) are gone! only thing that comes up are Black solid background.

tried reinstalling from file- worked flawlessly before- Now no soap ????????

[Ludwig Von Cookie Koopa]

If you miss your themes so much then I suggest importing from another computer with them. I would just go to themes

and install the files manually.

[alexanrs]

Do you have Active Desktop installed? If I recall correclty, most , if not all, themes had a JPEG wallpaper, and these cannot be applied without it.

If you need instructions on how to install it, look here Installing Active Desktop Update - Lightspeed's Windows 95 page

[phillip1966]

Again...thanks to those with helpful information.

[BenoitRen]

Don't do it! The Active Desktop 'update' will integrate IE4 into Windows 95 and slow down your PC. Convert the JPG files to BMP instead.

[alexanrs]

Don't do it! The Active Desktop 'update' will integrate IE4 into Windows 95 and slow down your PC. Convert the JPG files to BMP instead.

Applying the Desktop Update is really a matter of taste. I myself constantly use other features like the Quick Launch bar (my taskbar has two rows, one for shortcuts and other for the task buttons, because I hate a cluttered desktop). Also, if he said it used to work, it probably means he used to have it installed, so he's probably used to the slowdown.

You do have a valid point, though, and I myself disable the Active Desktop (JPEG/HTML wallpapers and Web Objects) per se, even on Win98/2K/XP, as it is, in my opinion, the most noticeable slowdown of the IE integration.

phillip1966: If you want a (relatively) quick way to apply a JPEG as a wallpaper without Active Desktop, open the file with Internet Explorer (if it is not the defalt handler, open an IE window and drag the file there), right-click the image and select "Set as Wallpaper". IE will conver the image to a bitmap file (%windir%\Internet Explorer Wallpaper.bmp) and apply this BMP file as your wallpaper.