Microsoft officials said Friday they will experiment with selling marketers the right to place ads in Windows 7 themes on users' desktops.

Perhaps ironically, the announcement came in the international gambling Mecca for the rich and famous, Monte Carlo.

Under the planned pilot, which will run until October 2010, several major advertisers will sell their brands and products using two of Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) graphical customization capabilities in Windows 7 and Internet Explorer.

"Microsoft is enabling global marketers to utilize the desktop or Internet browsing experience exclusively for their brand, with Windows Theme Experience and Windows Personalization Gallery," according to a company statement.

"The themes allow new consumer engagement opportunities across Microsoft's unique product portfolio and let consumers connect with their favorite brands outside of traditional online advertising," the statement continued.

Among Microsoft's launch partners for the pilot are Ducati, Infiniti, Porsche and Twentieth Century Fox.

Theme Experience provides IE8 add-ons, Windows 7 and Windows Vista Web-connected gadgets, Windows 7 backgrounds and borders, and operating system audio elements, Microsoft said.

Meanwhile, Personalization Gallery lets advertisers provide a customized desktop branding experience for Windows 7 users, including "backgrounds, slide shows, borders and application audio elements."

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Microsoft said that users will need to opt in to the advertising themes and customization in order to participate.

Several themes are available online.

The effort is only a growing part of Microsoft's evolving strategy around advertising, which has seen the company working to leverage the vast array software assets it has on behalf of marketers.

The news comes on the heels of word that Office 2010 Starter Edition, basically stripped down versions of Word and Excel, is expected to enter beta test next week. It will be both free and ad-supported.

Microsoft is also nearly ready to beta test advertising-supported versions of its productivity applications suite that will run in a Web browser. Called the Office 2010 Web Apps, they will be free to some 400 million Microsoft Live services users. Those apps are expected to begin testing next week as well.