You see now that the new themes will appear in the Personalization control panel and you can begin applying them immediately. Note also, you can “Get more themes online.” Clicking this link will open to Microsoft’s themes page where you can browse and download new themes to fancy things up a bit.
Give your new theme a memorable name and click “Save.” Once you’ve gotten your desktop decorated the way you desire, including pointers, sounds, and screen savers, you can simply click on the “Save Theme” link. One thing many people probably don’t realize is that they can save their favorite personalization as a theme. If you select “Color” then you can change the color or your window borders and taskbar using options to alter the hue, brightness, and saturation. If you click on the “Desktop Background” link, you can use one of any number of pre-installed backgrounds or pick a new one from your pictures or a wallpaper you downloaded. Looking at the control panel screenshot below, we can also see shortcuts to change things such as mouse pointers and desktop icons. The Personalization control panel allows you to do many things such as change the visuals and sounds on your computer, select a screen saver, or pick a new desktop background (wallpaper).
In order to get started, you want to right-click anywhere on the desktop and select “Personalize.”Īlternatively, you can open the Control Panel and double-click the Personalization control panel. After all, it’s your computer and you should make it appear as you like. In fact, you’ve always been able to customize your Windows desktop experience with the colors and backgrounds you prefer. Of course, if you can personalize the Start screen, you can personalize the desktop.
We’ll cover how to recover you system when things go wrong, and we’ll even throw in a handy list of the most useful keyboard shortcuts!Īs we’ve been saying, other than the technological equivalent of a new coat of paint, the desktop is still pretty much in the same place that it was in Windows 7. In this last lesson, we’re going to cover the desktop and show you that everything is still there. In fact, if you want to explore this subject further, we recommend picking up a copy of the How-To Geek Guide to Windows 8, which covers the desktop environment extensively.
Additions such as the ability to right-click for context menus on the Start screen are purely Start screen changes, so the desktop, as it stands right now is little different from the previous two versions.
That said, Microsoft did add some settings to the Taskbar properties that lets you turn down the Start screen’s presence.ĭespite all that, changes in the most recent update are largely the company’s inevitable surrender to its desktop user base.
Perhaps the most notable (infamous) change to Windows 8 was the actual removal of the Start button, which is back in 8.1, more or less. A completely redesigned Task Manager and a Ribbon interface for the File Explorer (formerly Windows Explorer), and that was kind of it. Much of what changed about the desktop from Windows 7 to Windows 8 could be seen in window borders, which lost their transparent glass look and became flat and opaque.