installing and using a new theme

What Kind of theme is it?

Did you download a Background? Or a Icon?

Double clicking a .Zip file will show whats inside.

Open up the .zip file. Take out the images stored inside and place them in the program directory labeled as such (backgrounds with backgrounds and so on...). If this is a vista install you will find the libarary under your Documents folder. After that when you run the settings menu from the dock they will be selectable backgrounds. Or if you right click on the icon and go to properties you can access the image through that menu.

It's advisable to EXTRACT the images using the extract button, if you just try to move them manually out of the zip, you could encounter problems.  Especially when there are numberous files that have the same names in there.  When they go into zip they are in separate folders but when you open a zip you don't see the actual folders, so there may be 6 different txt files that are named background.ini.  If you just grab all the files and try to place them in a folder, it's going to try to overwrite each previous one.  If you use Extract, it'll put all those files back inside the proper folders, just like the author had them when he zipped them.  EXTRACT, EXTRACT, EXTRACT.  Don't forget.

hello

thanks for the replies

im running xp and i downloaded the outerlimits theme

so inside the zip file there are many folders such as single, zoom, and tabs

i would have to put them in proper folders inside the objectdock right?

i will try them thanks!

You just need to extract 'unzip' the downloaded zip file to the ObjectDock backgrounds folder. This should also be of help to you - WinCustomize Wiki

No.  Like I said and Hankers said, EXTRACT them using the EXTRACT button in winzip.  This will place all the files inside the correct folders inside a folder named OuterLimits.  Then, just move that folder to C:\Program Files\Stardock\ObjectDock\Backgrounds.  Alternately, you can place this entire folder in C:\Documents and Settings\Mike\My Documents\ObjectDock Library\Backgrounds.  It is not neccesary to place them inside the "tabbed" "non-tabbed" etc folders.  ObjectDock will still find them.

obviously, you'd replace Mike with your own name.