Hi , i am having a problem when trying to install some winstep themes, after downloading some themes with winzip or winrar all i get is a page of bitmap icons, there is no application to actually install the theme ,can you please help as there are some beautifultiful themes i would really like to install. My OS is windows XP Many thanks.

How to install Winstep themes/skins:

Winstep themes come in one of two formats: as zip files or self-installable .xtreme files. In the later case, all you have to do to install the new theme is double click the .xtreme file - the new theme will be automatically added to the list of available themes.

Unfortunately things get a bit more complicated if the theme is still using the older .zip file format (the .xtreme theme format is still fairly recent). To know what to do with it, you will first have to open the zip file and look at its contents. This is because theme authors are the ones who ultimately decide what is actually inside the zip file: sometimes a single zip file will even hold several variations of the same theme.

When you open the theme zip file, you will usually see one of two things: either one or more folders (this is where things get more complicated) or a bunch of bitmaps and configuration files. In the later case, installing the theme is relatively easy: click on the Import button, navigate to where you've saved the downloaded zip file and double click it. The contents of the zip file will be automatically imported and the new theme should appear in the list of available themes (try refreshing the Themes page in Preferences if it does not).

If the zip file contains a folder, however, this means the theme author chose to manually export the theme. This means you will have to import the theme manually as well. In order to do this, you need to know where Winstep themes are stored on your hard drive:

Open the My Documents folder. Inside the My Documents folder you will find a shortcut to the Winstep user data folder. Double click the shortcut to open that folder. Inside the Winstep user data folder you should see a folder called 'Themes'. Now drag all the folders inside the zip file into the Themes folder. Everything having gone well, all you need to do to see the new theme is refresh the list of themes by re-opening the Themes tab in Preferences.

Hope this helps,