When you first install Windows 7, it asks for your language, time and currency. If you choose United States, for example, the available desktop backgrounds and themes will include a United States section with scenery from U.S. locations.
Did you know there are many hidden background and themes from other English-speaking countries, like Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada? There are, and you can access them easily by following this tip.
1. Press the Windows key plus the R key and type C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT and press Enter.
2. Windows Explorer will open and display a list of subfolders under C:WindowsGlobalizationMCT: MCT-AU, MCT-CA, MCT-GB, MCT-US, and MCT-ZA. Each subfolder has wallpapers for a specific country: AU for Australia, CA for Canada, GB for Great Britain, US for the United States, and ZA for South Africa.
For any of the countries whose wallpaper and themes you want to use, go into its Theme folder, for example, C:WindowsGlobalizationMCTMCT-CATheme. Double-click the theme you see there (for example CA).
Windows 7 Canada theme
A Canada theme, ready to use.
Click to view larger image.
3. A shortcut will be installed to theme and wallpapers in the Personalization section of Control Panel.
Now you can use any of the countries themes you added. You’ll be able to use all the additional themes and wallpapers just by right-clicking the desktop, choosing Personalize, and choosing a background or theme. Each country you added will be listed in their own section.
C:WindowsGlobalizationMCT This does not work on my Windows7 setup … not even if I put a / or a \ … at least the \ got a response from the computer, telling me no such file existed, as was I sure I had typed in the address correctly.
Thanks so much for the secret to hidden wallpapers. I’m off tomorrow morning to pick out a new laptop and I’m so excited to check this out. Thanks again for making my time with my computer even more fun.
This doesn’t work on my Windows 7 computer as well. I copied and pasted C:WindowsGlobalizationMCT and was told “No items match your search”. My computer came with Windows 7 pre-installed, so I’m guessing this feature was porobably not installed.
He has the location typed wrong–I’m suspecting his backslash key doesn’t work. The MCT and GLOBALIZATION folders are sub folders in the Windows folder, and MCT is hidden.
try: c:\windows\globalization\mct
I won’t work for me either I tried copy and paste and nothing .
I saw where you mentioned this a while back so I followed your advice and now have all the different countries wallpaper installed and love using it. Thanks for such a great tip!!!
Thanks, Daniel for “interpreting” TCs instructions. I had the same problem, you solved it. We have to work on him to proof read his articles. 🙂 lol
windows key plus R key….hit enter or OK
C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT
Hey Daniel, Linda, That works for me…..thanks a bunch…. (o: