Windows 7 Themes

With each new version of Microsoft Windows new features are added to both add functionality and to simplify things for the end user. One aspect that Windows 7, Microsoft’s latest operating system simplifies is choosing different themes for your computer. In this article I will explain how to change the system’s default theme and how to customize current themes.

There are two methods that you can take to open the theme selector in Windows 7. The old and slow way is to open the start menu, select control panel, and then select the option marked “personalize”. The new and much faster way is to right-click on the desktop and select “personalize”. This will open the theme selector in Windows 7 where you can select pre-made themes created by Microsoft and even customize existing themes. Once this program is open changing themes is easy, simply click on the theme you wish to change to and you will instantly see the new theme on the screen. You can select pre-installed themes or by clicking on the link marked “get more themes online” you can go to the Microsoft website to download additional themes.

You can also personalize your themes even more in this program by changing various parts of the theme such as the desktop background, mouse pointers, window and task bar colour, and screen saver! One of the new features that Windows 7 has is the ability to turn your desktop into a slide show! To do this simply click on the button labeled desktop background and from there click browse and navigate to the folder containing the pictures you wish to use. You can then choose which pictures will be used in the slide show as well as how often to rotate through the selected pictures. Another part of the display you can change is the colour used for the windows. By clicking on the button marked window colour you have the option of selecting pre-made colours or you can use the colour mixer to create your own custom colour. The third thing you may change from the main window is the sound scheme. This allows you to pick custom sounds for various events that may occur in the computer, such as starting up, shutting down, or reporting an error. Files used for custom sounds must be in a .wav format to work. The last item you may change from this window is the mouse pointers. If you have windows 7 home premium edition your default mouse pointers will be of the Windows Aero theme. By customizing the mouse pointers you can pick different colour pointers or even have some options that are animated.

Now that you know how to customize the look and feel of Windows 7 themes I encourage you to look for and try out the many themes that are available. I hope that I have helped you to give your personal computer a better personality!