Personalize Windows 7 Desktop

Windows 7 Tips

Personalize Windows 7 Desktop

In this article we provide the windows 7 tips to enhance your user experience and personalize the windows 7 desktop according to your choice.

If you don’t like the translucent glass effects provided by Windows Aero but would still like to take advantage of the other unique features and reliability offered by this user experience, take heart. Microsoft has nicely provided a number of ways in which you can fine-tune how it looks. As with Windows Vista, you’re free to manually change various aspects of Aero’s visual style individually. In Windows 7, Microsoft has introduced a new feature called Aero Themes that helps you access and create unique visual themes that affect multiple UI elements at once.

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aero theme windows 7 Personalize Windows 7 Desktop

How Using Aero Themes (Windows 7 Tips)

Aero Themes is a formal combination of desktop background, Aero glass window color, sound scheme, and screen saver. Windows 7 comes with a number of built-in Aero Themes and users can create their own by building off of them. Aero Themes can be saved, of course, and they’re also portable, meaning they can be packaged up and copied from machine to machine. Microsoft expects users and third-party partners to trade and perhaps even sell Aero Themes online when Windows 7 is finalized.

Also, Microsoft is building on a feature that was previously unique to Windows XP/Vista Starter Edition by providing built-in Windows 7 Aero Themes that are unique to different regions around the world. Pre-release versions of Windows 7, for example, include Aero Themes oriented towards Australia, Canada, Great Britain, the United States, and South Africa.

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Windows 7 Secrets

Most of these locale-specific Aero Themes are not available by default, but you can find several of them hidden in C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT.

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Aero Themes can optionally take advantage of another new bit of functionality called desktop slide shows. This feature allows you to specify multiple pictures for the background image and then have the system rotate between them on a set schedule.

desktop personlize windows 7 tips Personalize Windows 7 Desktop

Working with Aero Themes and Theme Packs (Windows 7 Tips)

Aero Themes are accessed via the new Personalization option on the context menu that appears when you right-click the Windows desktop. (You can also launch this control panel by typing Personalization in Start Menu Search.) The Personalization control panel.

As you can see, a stock Windows 7 install includes whatever Aero Themes you’ve created (or are currently using), several built-in Aero Themes, and several Basic and High Contrast Themes, the latter of which includes styles based around the Windows 7 Basic and Windows Classic themes and four high-contrast themes.

Themes available in Windows 7:

Windows 7: The default Windows 7 Aero Theme utilizes the default Sky (clear, light bluish) glass color, the Windows Default sound scheme, and no screen saver. This is a great theme from which to create your own theme.

Architecture: This Aero Theme features a desktop slide show of six alternating architectural images, the Twilight (deep blue) glass color, the Cityscape sound scheme, and no screen saver.

Characters: This Aero Theme features a desktop slide show of six alternating whimsical cartoon-type images, the Taupe (light pink) glass color, the Characters sound scheme, and no screen saver.

Landscapes: This Aero Theme features a desktop slide show of six alternating landscape images, the Slate (dusty brown) glass color, the Landscape sound scheme, and no screen saver. plant and leaf based images, the Lavender (bright pink) glass color, the Garden sound scheme, and no screen saver.

Scenes: This Aero Theme features a desktop slide show of six alternating artistic images, the Violet (soft purple) glass color, the Quirky sound scheme, and no screen saver.

Theme for [your region]: This Aero Theme is customized for the region in which you live. So in my case, it is customized for the United States. It features a desktop slide show of six alternating country- or region-specific images, a custom glass color (medium tan for the U.S.), a custom sound scheme (Delta for the U.S.), and no screen saver.

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Windows 7 Secrets

Aero Theme files are, in fact, simple text files, similar to XML or INI files, so you can open them with a text editor, like Wordpad, to see what they’re made of. A typical section in an Aero Theme file looks like so:

[VisualStyles]

Path=%SystemRoot%\resources\theiTies\Aero\Aero.iTisstyles ColorStyle=NormalColor Size=NormalSize ColorizationColor=0X45409EFE Transparency=1 VisualStyleVersion=10

The problem with Aero Theme files is that they’re not portable: if the Aero Theme you’re using includes background images, sounds schemes, or screen savers that aren’t found in a default Windows 7 install, you won’t be able to pass them around to others. Fortunately, there’s a way around this issue: you can also save Aero Themes as a Theme Pack (*.themepack), which packages all of the needed files into a single archive that can then be distributed to others.

Note that Theme Pack files are really just ZIP files with a different extension. That means you can open them—and extract their contents—with any ZIP extractor, including Compressed Folders, WinRAR, WinZIP, and others.

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To save an Aero Theme, click the Save theme link, which is subtly located near the bottom right of the My Themes section. Aero Themes are saved as a single file with a *.theme extension. These files can then be copied to other PCs and used elsewhere.

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Windows 7 Secrets

Microsoft offers a number of wonderful pre-built Theme Packs on the Windows 7 Web site (windows.microsoft.com/en-US/Windows7/Personalize). To download and install these Theme Packs, click the link “Get more themes online” in the bottom-right corner of the My Themes section of the Personalization window. This site also offers downloadable desktop backgrounds, desktop gadgets, and Sideshow gadgets.

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