How to Prevent Themes to Change Desktop Icons & Mouse Pointers in Windows 7?

Windows 7 comes with lots of new themes which can be applied using Desktop Personalize menu. You can also download various themes from Microsoft official Windows 7 Theme gallery using this link.

Almost all these themes come with their own Desktop icons set and mouse cursors which are changed automatically once you apply the theme. But sometimes it becomes a little annoying when a new theme changes your custom icons and cursors automatically without even asking you. So what to do if you want to use your favorite icons and cursors instead of the bundled stuff with the theme. How to prevent themes to change Desktop icons and mouse cursors automatically?

Actually that's very easy. You can customize whether a theme should change icons and cursors or not. You can follow these simple steps:

1. Right-click on Desktop and select "Personalize". It'll open Desktop Personalization window. Now you'll need to click on "Change desktop icons" and "Change mouse pointers" links given in left-side pane.

2. First let's talk about "Change desktop icons" link. Click on it and it'll open "Desktop Icon Settings" window. You'll see a checkbox "Allow themes to change desktop icons" present at the bottom of the window.

Simply uncheck this option and Apply your changes.

3. Now come to the "Change mouse pointers" link. Click on it and it'll open "Mouse Properties" window. You'll again see a checkbox "Allow themes to change mouse pointers" at the bottom of this window.

Uncheck this option and Apply the changes.

4. That's it. Now no theme will change your favorite icons or cursors automatically.

This article was posted in Troubleshooting, Windows 7.

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7 Comments

ian

how can I do the similar thing in Windows XP?
because whenever I change themes my cursor
changes to its default and it's such a trouble
to find the cursor again.

hope you know how to do it. (:
VG

^^ Apply the theme using its .msstyles file and not .theme file. In that way, it'll not apply the bundled icons, cursors.

Or you can edit .theme file in Notepad and remove the lines containing custom icons and cursors path.
ian

^^ yay! thank you very much!
Someone

How about sounds? Many Windows 7 themes change sound schemes too.
VG

^^ You'll need to edit .theme file and remove all instances of sound files.
MAGNUMHEART

howdy there vishal. i have dual boot my computer

now i have xp and 7.

i wud wanna know how to share the folders and files

that has permissions for a specific user (me) in xp.

i have private files that i kept unshared to other users of my system.

but i want also to access it in windows 7. i have searched but no answers found. ^^

thx in advanced.
VG

^^ Take ownership of that file/folder in Windows 7.