How to schedule and rotate Windows 7 themes


Yep, there are dynamic Windows 7 themes, but what if you want to schedule or rotate Windows 7 themes so that they change frequently? Here’s how you can do that with a simple batch script and the Windows Task Scheduler. TOP!

How to schedule Windows 7 themes

Quick Links:
1. Schedule Themes
2. Rotate Themes

Scheduling Windows 7 Themes

Do you want to surprise someone and schedule a Windows 7 theme so that for example a “happy birthday wallpaper” appears when he/she logs in? This is easy to do when you know how to change Windows 7 themes from a command prompt.

1. Read our tutorial how to apply Windows 7 themes from command prompt to understand how this will work

2. Open a text editor and insert this or download this bat file: schedule-themes.bat


rundll32.exe %SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL %SystemRoot%\system32\desk.cpl desk,@Themes /Action:OpenTheme /file:"C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\1.theme"

Replace 1.theme with the name of your favorite Windows 7 theme

2.1 Save the file as a .bat file IMPORTANT: When you save the file select “All files” from the dropdown, then add .bat to the filename

3. Schedule a new task in Windows Task Scheduler. To do that enter “schedule” in your search bar and click on Task Scheduler

4. In the right pane you see a link Create Task… click on it

Create Windows 7 Task

5. Enter a name for the task on the General tab

New Task Name

6. Go to the tab Actions and click on New at the bottom. Click on Browse and find the batch file that we saved in step 2.1.

New Task Action

7. Go to the tab Trigger and click on New. Select a time when you want Windows to change the Windows 7 theme. You can even repeat the task, which might be useful for other purposes.

Schedule task time

8. Click on OK when you are satisfied with the scheduled task settings

9. Now Windows will change the Windows 7 theme ONCE at the time that you specified

Rotate Windows 7 Themes Every X Minutes

You could now write a little batch file that renames files every 5 minutes and rotates your Windows 7 themes

1. Save your 3 favorite Windows 7 themes that you want to rotate as 1.theme, 2.theme and 3.theme in C:\Windows\Resources\Themes

2. Open a notepad editor and insert this or download this bat file: rotate-themes.bat


rename C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\1.theme C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\4.theme
rename C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\2.theme C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\1.theme
rename C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\3.theme C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\2.theme
rename C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\4.theme C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\3.theme

3. Save the text file as .bat file. IMPORTANT: When you save the file select “All files” from the dropdown

4. Schedule the .bat file as we did with the script above and check the option “Repeat every” and select 5 minutes from the dropdown

5. Now Windows 7 will apply a new Windows 7 theme every 5 minutes. Neat, huh?


Or you might like these sexy wallpaper, tweaks and themes:

Written by oliversk Friday, July 29th, 2011

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One Response to How to schedule and rotate Windows 7 themes

  1. mmereu2004 said:

    Ok, this is very useful, but i have a small problem if you can help me some more. I need the pictures from the theme to be “fit” at Picture position. By default it is “center”. Can you do that? Thank you for your time.

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