Hi Gang,

There seems to be some misunderstanding in the suites section here on WinCustomize. So let me try to go over this briefly:

What is a Suite?

A .suite file contains skins, themes, icons, wallpapers, etc. Basically a suite is a snapshot of someone's desktop.

What are the file formats of a suite?

The first program to create suites was called WinStyles. It has gone through its share of file extensions. But mainly there were two: .suite files and .xptheme files.

The two formats had very different purposes. You can't redistribute the skins, themes, icons, etc. of others without their permission. So we created the .suite file which was designed to allow users to LINK to the skin, theme, etc. A .suite file might be less than 1K in size for instance if it just linked to everything else.  A .xptheme file, by contrast, actually included inside the file all  the skins and themes needed to apply.

By contrast, when a .suite file was applied, it would look at the links and download automatically the skins and themes it needed. This way, the original author's work is protected and even gets a higher download count.

But more recently, Theme Manager, which is currently only on Object Desktop, combines the two into the .suite format.  Now, a .suite might contain the wallpaper or icons in the file and also might link to a skin or theme on the Internet it needs.

How they should be used

It's fairly straight forward: IF YOU DIDN'T MAKE THE SKIN, THEME, ICON PACKAGE, ETC. YOU CANNOT INCLUDE IT WITH YOUR SUBMISSION WITHOUT PERMISSION.  Many people are uploading .suite files that contain within them the skins and themes of others. This is not allowed. LINK to it instead. I'll be making a video of this shortly.