Microsoft Plus!, a program designed to enhance the Windows user interface, utilizes the .the file extension for its theme files. Microsoft Plus! was first offered in 1994 under the name Frosting, and includes themes, screen savers, games, and other small applications. Although most of the program's content is produced by Microsoft, third-party vendors and hobbyists also add to the list of available add-ons. Microsoft Plus! was dropped with the introduction of Windows Vista but users can still get limited support for the software until spring of 2010.
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Theme files contain the information to tell Windows what background, color scheme, sound scheme, etc. to use, and where those files are located. A simple text editor will open .the files as standard text allowing the user to read and manipulate the data. Users who are comfortable with their knowledge of the different theme components should be able to edit these files for Windows 95 and 98 without difficulty. It is cautioned however, that editing of XP or 2000 versions be done only by experienced users as the code is a bit more complicated.
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More Info Regarding File Extension The
In addition to the .the extension, Microsoft Plus! theme files more commonly use .theme as the extension. They are the exact same file and both can be utilized by the program. Theme files created for Windows 95 and 98 editions can be used interchangeably, but the file architecture changed with the release of Windows 2000 and XP. Newer theme files do not have backward compatibility making them unusable in Windows 95 and 98.
Users who have upgraded from older versions of Windows to XP will find that any themes they had before the upgrade didn't carry over. The good news is that .the files, along with the associated graphics, sounds, etc. will most likely still reside on the hard drive after an upgrade. In most cases they will be located in the "Program FilesPlus!Themes" directory. The reason Windows XP's theming tool doesn't use them is two-fold. First, the new Microsoft Plus! program stores the various elements of a theme in various places. As an example, a screen saver in the older version would remain in the Themes directory while in the new version it resides in the "C:WindowsSystem32" directory. To utilize this screen saver it would need to be copied over to the new directory and the .the file edited to reflect the change. Second, the XP theming engine uses a .dll as its "program" rather than an .exe, meaning some additional code must be written into the .the file for it to work. Unless a user is familiar with this code, he will no be able to edit the file to make it usable.
The most common errors with .the files generally occur with third-party offerings. Authors of the themes may leave out an element that affects only one part of the theme, while bad coding may render the entire theme useless. Unless a theme author offers support for his creations, there is likely no fix for a poorly coded .the file, especially in Windows XP. One common error that can be easily fixed though, is a background that doesn't load or display properly. In most cases this is due to the fact that the background image is of a higher resolution than the video card can support. In this case, the image can be opened using a graphics editor and scaled to a suitable resolution. Users are cautioned to save the original image under a different name before resizing, then save the new image with the original name.
Theme files for Microsoft Plus! are also capable of carrying viruses or malware. The theme can be downloaded and extracted to the proper folders without incident, but as soon as the user opens the theme to apply it malicious code can be executed without the user's knowledge. Due to its use of the .dll for the theme engine, Windows XP is especially vulnerable to this threat. It is advised that users make sure their Windows systems are always up to date and antivirus software is always running and updated. Both will reduce the likelihood of an infection through a .the file.
