Embed a custom color palette/theme into a custom PowerPoint template

I'm having an issue in PowerPoint 2007 in Windows XP.

Here is the problem:

How to embed a custom color palette and theme (incl. theme colors) into a custom PPT template (POT or POTX file)??

When creating a custom template, the colors are there, but the color palette is not automatically created. That is, a custom template file (template.potx) that uses a custom theme (theme.thmx - which you can export by itself) has a custom color theme. So when the PPT template is open, and you click the Design tab (PPT2007), near the far right, you can select the Colors from a drop-down menu.

I want to be able to create a custom color theme that is attached/embedded within a custom template. So when users downloads the custom template, they can select from the Colors drop-down menu and see the custom color theme right there.

You can effectively create the custom color theme that is part of the template by Saving a new Theme with the custom template open:

Go to:
Design tab, select Colors drop-down (far right), select 'Create New Theme Colors' and save without making any changes, naming the color theme appropriately.
This will make the color theme available to all Office docs on that local system.

But we couldn't find a way to bypass this step and make the color theme available automatically. All the info is there obviously, but you don't actually get the custom color theme unless you explicitly Save a new one.

I'm not sure why this is so difficult, but am guessing it may have something to do with the fact that a color theme is Office-wide, where a template is specific to PPT.
Is it possible to embed a (named) custom color theme within a custom PPT template?

I have searched the Googles to no avail.

Thanks for any help you can provide!