Windows 8: RSS-based Desktop Theme Fix

One of the things introduced with Windows Vista Ultimate was the notion of having RSS-based themes that would continuously update your background with new images from the Intertubes. They worked on Windows 7 but I noticed an issue when I tried to grab “Aqua Dynamic” from the Themes website: the theme was downloaded fine but the images were always blank. After looking around some sites, I noticed that the images are stored in a AppData directory which I had locally and it had images… but the folder in Windows 8 is hidden and system, which prevents themes from getting images!

Open a command prompt.

If you’ve installed the theme already, you need to get rid of the feed: delete the .feed-ms file that has your theme name in it at C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Feeds

Find the .theme file you want and double click it, which causes a dialog to pop up. Don’t press anything.

Now run: attrib -s -h “C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files”

Now select “Download Attachments” from the Apply Theme popup.

Enjoy the RSS-based goodness.


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