Windows 7 All-in-One For Dummies

?

Windows 7 All-in-One

?

For Dummies

Book 3, Chapter 1: Personalizing Your Desktop

ISBN: 978-0-470-48763-1

Copyright of Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Indianapolis, Indiana

Posted with Permission

Chapter 1: Personalizing

Your Desktop

In This Chapter

? Taking control of each desktop level

? Traipsing through themes

? Starting a screen saver in a flash

? Finding the real story on how Windows puts together your desktop

I

t¡¯s your desktop. Do with it what you will.

You might think it¡¯d be easy for a computer to slap windows on the screen,

but it isn¡¯t. In fact, Windows 7 uses six separate layers to produce that

Windows 7, er, vista ¡ª and you can take control of every layer. I show you

how in this chapter.

I also include a discussion of desktop themes, backgrounds in Windows

Explorer, and the deservedly famous (but oh-so-derivative) Windows 7

gadgets. Pretty cool stuff.

Most importantly, I include instructions for creating a Super Boss Key

in the later section ¡°Selecting Screen Savers.¡± Whenever you press a key

combination that you choose ¡ª say, Alt+F10 ¡ª a Windows 7 screen saver

immediately springs into action. If you¡¯ve ever been surprised when the

boss walked in as you were dusting off your r¨¦sum¨¦, day trading, or playing a mean game of Minesweeper, you now know how to cover your tracks.

You¡¯re welcome.

Recognizing Desktop Levels

The Windows 7 desktop ¡ª that is, the collection of stuff you see on your

computer screen ¡ª consists of six layers (see Figure 1-1, which shows five

of the six layers).

For a quick change of pace, desktop themes change five of the six layers, all

at once. I talk about desktop themes in the section ¡°Using Desktop Themes,¡±

later in this chapter.

228

Recognizing Desktop Levels

Base color

Icon

Gadget

Background (formerly known as wallpaper)

Figure 1-1:

The

Windows

7 desktop,

showing the

Glass transparency

effect.

A working window

These six layers control how Windows dishes up your desktop:

? Level 1: At the bottom, the Windows 7 desktop has a base color, which

is a solid color that you see only if you don¡¯t have a desktop background

picture or if your chosen background doesn¡¯t fill the entire screen. Most

people never see their Windows base color because the background

usually covers it up. I tell you how to set the base color and all the other

Windows colors ¡ª for dialog boxes, the taskbar, the works ¡ª in the

next section of this chapter.

? Level 2: Above the base color lives the Windows desktop background.

(Microsoft used to call it wallpaper, and you see that name frequently.)

In Figure 1-1, my dad¡¯s photo appears as the desktop background. It isn¡¯t

stretched to fit the full screen, which is why you can see the base color.

The people who sold you your computer may have placed some sort of

dorky ad on the desktop. I tell you how to get rid of the ad and replace it

with a picture you want in the section ¡°Picking a Background,¡± later in

this chapter.

Setting Color Schemes in Windows 7

229

? Level 3: Windows puts all its desktop icons on top of the background

layer and underneath everything else. Bone-stock Windows 7 includes

only one icon ¡ª the Recycle Bin. If you bought a PC with Windows 7 preinstalled, the manufacturer probably put lots of additional icons on the

desktop, and you can easily get rid of them. I tell you how in the section

¡°Controlling Icons,¡± later in this chapter.

? Level 4: Above the icons you find (finally!) the program windows ¡ª

the ones that do work ¡ª you know, in little programs such as Word,

Excel, and Media Player. Windows 7 ships with Aero, a specific program

window style. If your graphics card is sufficiently capable, the edges of

the Aero windows are translucent ¡ª the Glass effect. That¡¯s the origin

of the term Aero Glass. For more information and many non-Aero nonGlass options, see the next section in this chapter. (See Book I, Chapter

2 to find out more about video cards and Windows 7.)

Program windows share a layer with Windows gadgets ¡ª those incredibly useful little tools such as clocks, currency converters, calculators,

performance monitors, and slide shows ¡ª that everybody and his

brother seem to produce nowadays. You can slide a gadget on top of a

program window, or you can slide a program window on top of a gadget.

I show you how to get the most from your gadgets in the section in Book

II, Chapter 1 about getting gadgets.

? Level 5: Then you have the mouse, which lives on the layer above the

program windows. In case you want to change the picture used for the

pointer, I talk about fancy mouse pointers in the section ¡°Changing

Mouse Pointers,¡± later in this chapter.

If you have more than one user on your PC, each user can customize every

single part of the six layers to suit her tastes, and Windows 7 remembers

every setting, bringing it back when the user logs on. Much better than getting a life, isn¡¯t it?

Setting Color Schemes in Windows 7

Windows 7 ships with 16 prebuilt designer color schemes; the ¡°Sky¡± blue

version of Aero is the scheme of choice. You can change to a different

designer scheme or invent one all your own. To change color schemes,

follow these steps:

Personalizing

Your Desktop

? Level 6: At the top of the desktop food chain sits the screen saver. It

kicks in only if you tell Windows that you want it to appear when your

computer sits idle for a spell. I talk about that beast in the section

¡°Selecting Screen Savers,¡± later in this chapter.

Book III

Chapter 1

230

Setting Color Schemes in Windows 7

1. Right-click any empty part of the Windows desktop and choose

Personalize.

The Change the Visuals and Sounds on Your Computer dialog box

appears.

2. At the bottom, click the link that says Window Color.

Windows 7 opens the Window Color and Appearance dialog box (see

Figure 1-2).

Figure 1-2:

The 16

designer

color

schemes ¡ª

and a nearly

infinite

array of

alternatives

¡ª appear

here.

3. To speed up the display on your computer (but zap one of the coolest

Windows 7 features), deselect the Enable Transparency check box.

The transparency feature (you can see its effect around the Windows

Explorer box in Figure 1-1) is named Glass, for reasons that escape me at

the moment. When Windows Vista came out, everybody oooh¡¯ed and

aaah¡¯d about something named Aero Glass. It was billed as one of the

top new Windows Vista features. As you can see from this dialog box,

Aero is now named Sky ¡ª it¡¯s one of 16 color schemes on offer ¡ª and

Glass equates to a check box labeled Enable Transparency (the same as

in Vista). I commonly hear the terms Aero, Glass, Aero Glass, and Time

Flies Like an Aero used interchangeably. Sic transit gloria computerii.

If your PC can¡¯t run the Glass interface ¡ª either you don¡¯t have a powerful enough video card to run the Glass interface or you got conned into

buying Windows 7 Starter edition ¡ª you may not see the choices in

Figure 1-2. See Book I, Chapter 3 for the maddening details.

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