Not everyone knows, but all of our brilliant Windows 7 Themes here at Everything-Microsoft also work perfectly fine on Windows 8. So if you’re looking to give your Windows 8 Desktop a bit of a refresh, be sure to go and check out our extensive gallery of Windows 8 Themes.

Today I have 4 Water Inspired themes which will work on both Windows 7 and Windows 8. There’s nothing more majestic and graceful than flowing rivers, gushing waterfalls and churning seas which is why this selection of themes will be be brilliant for any Windows 7 or Windows 8 desktop.

Blue Water Theme

Bodies of water in all their varied magnificence are seen in this free theme for Windows 7: reflecting the lights of the city, flowing under picturesque stone bridges, winding through rolling hills, and glowing with a tropical ocean blue.

Blue Water Theme

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Australian Shores

The best of Australian beaches and waterways are on display in this free Windows 7theme by photographer Anton Gorlin, including alpine lakes, beaches lit up with pastel sunsets, and towering hills of sand under brilliant blue skies.

Australian Shores

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Aqua Dynamic Theme

Churning seas, rushing rivers, and gracefully curling waves are just a few of the images you’ll get with this free Windows 7 theme. Water: powerful, serene, and dynamic, captured by our community of contributors in splendid color and form. This theme updates automatically through an RSS feed.

Aqua Dynamic theme

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Waterfalls Theme

Gurgling canyon creeks, rushing mountain streams, and cascading, terraced rivers: Waterfalls in all their glorious diversity are featured in this free theme for Windows 7.

Waterfalls Theme

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Microsoft has fundamentally changed the company’s desktop operating system personalization strategy with the release of Windows 7. Vista and XP users together received less than a dozen official themes ever since they were released to the public. The theme engine changes in Windows 7 made it a lot easier to create and distribute themes. Windows 7′s Personalization Gallery is filled with hundreds of official themes, and while they do not alter core elements of the operating system, they offer enough personalization to please the majority of users. And those who need full conversions can still download third party themes to install them on top of the operating system. It appears that Microsoft is planning to continue the personalization strategy in Windows 8. The Redmond company today has released the first official Windows 8 theme. The Nightfall and Starlight panoramic themeis a dual monitor theme exclusively designed for the Windows 8 operating system.

Designed to extend seamlessly across dual monitors with identical resolution settings, this dramatic free theme for your Windows 8 Consumer Preview desktop also shifts your glass color to match each stunning, wide-angle image. Explore distant galaxies, verdant meadows, steep mountains, and serene seas without ever leaving your chair.

Microsoft notes that the theme can only be used in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview or Windows 8 Developer Preview. The theme supports single monitor setups, but only the center part of the image will be visible on those systems in this case. The wallpaper will automatically stretch across both displays on a dual monitor setup. All desktop wallpapers have a resolution of 3840×1200, which is perfect for large dual monitor systems. You find all wallpapers below.

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Nightfall and Starlight Windows 8 Theme

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It is likely that we will see additional theme releases in the near future, especially for single monitor systems but also for mobile devices.

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The Windows 8 Consumer Preview can’t be too far away now. We’ve had loads of leaks to do with Windows 8 which you can read all about over at our sister site Windows 8 News. Recently there was a few leaked screenshots from the Consumer Preview build of Windows 8 which hasn’t been made available to the public yet. Along with those screenshots came some wallpapers that are set to be made available in the consumer preview of Windows 8.

I know that you guys love the huge range of wallpapers that we have here at Windows7news, so I decided to get the wallpapers from the Windows 8 Consumer Preview  to add to our extensive collection.

The first one is actually the same as the log on wallpaper for Windows 7, the others are new as best as I can make out. There’s also 2 widescreen wallpapers which I imagine would be for multi monitor displays.

You can check them out in the gallery below. To save them simply right click on the image then choose save as.

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Some of you may love the new Metro UI for Windows 8, others may hate it, but either way I bet you all want to try it out at some stage. Of course the only way to experience it properly is to grab yourself a copy of the Windows 8 Developer Preview and then install it. I’ve put together a nice little guide to install Windows 8 in a virtual box on your existing Windows 7 machine which you can find here. However the issue with installing Windows 8 in a virtual machine is that unless you’ve got a fairly high spec system, it’s not going to perform very well.

So for those of you who want to try out the new Windows 8 UI, but don’t fancy installing the developer preview, here is another option for you. This free Windows 8 UX Pack will bring the Windows 8 UI experience to your desktop without any modifications to your registry or system files.

It’s quite simple to use. All you have to do is download the UX pack from the link at the end of this post. Then you extract the folder.

Next you want to run the executable file that’s contained in the extracted folder. You will then be presented with various different options which allow you to select what theme it is you want to use. You’ve a choice between Windows 8 Aero, Aero Lite or the full blown Metro UI theme.

There’s also a couple of other options like selecting the wallpaper and log on screen as well as changing the start menu ‘s icon.

It’s all quite self-explanatory and to undo any changes you simply just run the .exe file again and hit uninstall.

It does actually work quite well, however low powered machines will probably find things aren’t quite as fluid and smooth as they should be. But it’s definitely a good alternative to downloading the Windows 8 developer preview if you only want to get a feel for the UI

Windows 8 UX Pack

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Source:

WindowsX

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We’ve found another Windows 8 Theme to help you fill the gap until you can run Windows 8 legally as part of the Windows 8 testing program.

This Windows 8 theme contains:

- 8 Wallpapers.
- Windows 8 Start (New Style/ no more orbs).
- Windows 8 Longhorn Style Explorer.
- Windows 8 Logon Screen Style.
- Windows 8 System Properties.
- Taskbar Properties.
- Quick launch blue hovering(pinned feel).
- Taskbar Icon blue hovering(pinned feel).
- Taskbar Folder group will be Library Icon.
- Taskbar Group Size in 3 to be iconize.
- Shut down Button Startmenu( 7 Styler).
- New Search (7 Styler).
- Windows 8 (7 Styler) User Icon.
- Explorer Library Icon (7 Styler).

Ultimate Windows 8 Theme Collection

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Source: link

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The core issue that is keeping the majority of Windows users away from changing their theme is the complexity of the procedure. While it takes just a click to install basic new themes under Windows 7 that change the wallpaper, color scheme and maybe some sounds, it is not as easy to switch to a full theme.

Why? Because Microsoft has built-in protections into the operating system to prevent tampering with core operating system interfaces. Before it is even possible to start changing themes under Windows it is necessary to patch those system files.

This meant running one or multiple programs back in the days. To make matters worse, some programs were not compatible with 32-bit versions and some offered different program versions for that. Lots of confusion in this regard.

The Windows 8 Skin Pack 1.0 For 7 is different. It comes with an installer that takes care of everything, if you want. It patches the uxtheme.dll automatically before installing all necessary theme files to turn Windows 7 into Windows 8.

Take a look at a screenshot of a Windows 7 Professional system after installing the Windows 8 theme on the system.

The theme installs the new Windows 8 login screen, wallpapers, taskbar modifications and a lot more.

Installation of the theme is a breeze. I recommend you create a system restore point before you start the installation though. This is a disaster recovery option then, to turn back to the old system if the installation goes wrong.

The easiest way to do that is to click on the start button and enter restore point in the search box there. Select Create a restore point from the search results and follow the instructions on screen.

You can download the theme installer directly from Windows 8 News. Everything is packed into a zip file. Just extract the contents and run the installer afterwards. You can unselect items if you like, but it is not recommended due to compatibility reasons.

8 Skin Pack 1.0 For 7

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You are asked to restart the PC afterwards, and will be greeted with the new Windows 8 log on screen after you have done so.

The Windows 8 theme comes with a full Aero theme and an Aero lite theme, which is a basic theme. It is possible to switch between both easily with a right-click on the desktop and the selection of Personalize.

What we really like about the theme is the super easy way to install it. Please note that you need to uninstall the theme to undo all the changes made to the operating system. It is not enough to switch to another theme, as some modifications have been hard coded into the system files.

All system files are restored during uninstallation, and now traces of the theme are left on the system.

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Microsoft is currently working on completing Milestone 3 of the Windows 8 development process. This basically means that a lot can – and will – change in the coming months. The user interface is no exception to that, even though it looks cleaner and more professional than that of Windows 7 already.

When the first desktop screenshots of Windows 8 appeared, several designers began to create themes for existing operating systems.

The latest is called 8 Skin Pack for 7. It was posted on Deviantart where it is available for public download. The theme looks very professional, which can be attributed to the fact that it goes beyond what standard themes can offer in Windows 7.

Here are the basics that you need to know before you start installing the Windows 8 theme:

• It works on both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 7 SP1, works better under 32-bit according to the developer.
• It is compatible with all language versions of Windows 7.
• It is necessary to patch system files before you can install the theme.
• Before you do that, create a backup of your system.

The developer has posted links to all necessary files and tools on the theme’s page.

If you ask me, then I’d say that this is the best looking Windows 8 theme so far.

Windows 8 Theme For Windows 7 was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

We have our first set of Windows 8 Wallpapers! The Windows 8 Transformation Pack is from the same team who pulled together some of the early Windows 7 Wallpapers.

Within the pack are are Windows 8 Wallpapers and Windows 8 Login Screen backgrounds.

Windows 8 Transformation Pack

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