Windows 7 RSS Themes

Want some fresh Windows 7 RSS Themes? In Windows 7, you can not only set an image as your background, you can set a RSS feed as your background. Huh? How’s that supposed to work, you may ask. Well, there are plenty of photo websites out there like flickr, who provide RSS feeds of their image galleries. So, let’s create some Windows 7 RSS Themes!

Windows 7 RSS themes are themes that are getting updated automatically via a feed address. You can set a schedule when the theme will be updated and then it will download the media files straight to your PC and display them on your desktop.
This new feature that has been around since Vista is actually very useful and I have been fiddling around with it for a while now. It’s definitely something that has potential to become something big.

At http://www.mlewallpapers.com/ you will find a “Wallpaper of the Day” RSS feed. I created a Windows 7 RSS theme of that feed. The following RSS Windows 7 Themes will be updated daily, so you want to set the schedule to 24 hours (see below for more instructions).

Windows 7 RSS Theme:
Wallpaper of the Day

For standard monitors, updated daily:

Windows 7 RSS Theme:
Widescreen Wallpaper of the Day

A theme for widescreen monitors, updated daily:

Windows 7 RSS Theme:
Dualscreen Wallpaper of the Day

Intended for dualscreen monitors, updated daily:

Windows 7 RSS Theme:
Interesting GEO Photos

Note: Background should be set to “Center” or the resolution will be pretty ugly.

We will soon be adding our own “Wallpaper of the Day” theme, that will feature a great Gaming wallpaper every day.

RSS Theme Schedule

One you install a Windows 7 RSS theme you will automatically subscribe to the feed via Internet Explorer 8, therefore I recommend to use another browser for feed reading. If you unsubscribe from a feed, your theme will stop working.

The Windows 7 RSS themes above will be updated daily, but if you happen to come across a theme that is updating every 20 minutes or so, you have to change the RSS feed properties in IE8.

1. Step Open up the Internet Explorer 8
2. StepRight-click on the RSS feed that is specified for the Windows 7 theme and click on “Properties”

3. Step Click on “Settings” to define a different schedule, e.g. 15 minutes and your theme will be updating every 15 minutes.

RSS provides us with so many endless possibilities that this feature is GREATLY underdeveloped. I will be working on this and will keep you up to date. Having a “Live” theme is so much more appropriate for Windows 7 :D