When Microsoft introduced Windows 10 to consumers, they brought a lot of new and exciting innovations along with their new product. If you’ve just purchased a new Windows 10 laptop, or are looking to breathe life into your existing laptop and make it yours, you’ll love this series of articles.
Note: Upgrading to Windows 10 is a smart decision as far as form and function are involved. Windows also introduced a number of security innovations to their devices that will make it safer to browse on the internet. If you are currently using Windows 7, try to upgrade to 10, to avoid the need for virus removal or laptop repair.
How to Customize Your Windows 10 | Customizing the Desktop
The first thing you might want to do to customize your Windows 10 computer is changing the desktop wallpaper. To do this, select “Themes and Theme Settings.” Choose Desktop Background from that window to see more options.
You’ll see a drop-down list where you can choose from three different options. The first option is to choose a solid color. If you opt to select this option, click on “solid color” and a palette of solid colors will appear. Choose the color you like best to personalize your desktop.
Windows 10 also includes a Slideshow option. If you choose this, you can create a slideshow using different pictures as wallpaper. If you’d like to add your own pictures, create a folder with personalized pictures that can serve as a slideshow. Choose browse and find the folder with the images you’d like to use.
As far as slideshows go, there are a few extra options. You can tweak the time each picture will be on the desktop by selecting the change image drop-down list.
You can also choose a fit to ensure that the images will properly fit on the desktop.
Finally, you can choose to add just one image to your desktop. Click the drop-down list that is titled Background and choose your picture. Select one of the picture thumbnails, or choose to browse to pick out your own image to use as a desktop.
Personalize Your Windows 10 Desktop Icons
A neat customization hack is to personalize your desktop icons. You can go to Personalize, then Theme Settings, and select Change Desktop Icons.
This will allow you to personalize your system icons.
You can choose from a selection of a few icons to use to personalize your desktop. You also have the option to remove system icons. You’ll see checkboxes in the Change Desktop Icons area. Uncheck a checkbox if you’d like to get rid of a system icon on your desktop.
You can also add personalized icons for shortcuts to your software. Just right-click on the icon and choose Properties. Choose Change Icon and select Browse to choose a separate icon for it from a folder.
That being said, you’ll have to have some icons saved in a folder. You can find new icons by checking out sites like Icon Archive. You’ll download an ICO file to save an icon to your Downloads folder.
Customizing the Look and Feel of Windows 10
You can also change the color accent that will appear through the taskbar, title bars, Start, Action Center, and linkable text you’ll find in apps and settings.
To change the current color, open Settings, choose personalization and select colors. Choose the color accent you want to use.
You can also have Windows 10 choose the color accent. Simply check the “Automatically pick an accent color from my background” option where it says “Choose your Color.”
If you don’t find the color you want, you can click the button that says Custom Color to create a custom color using the palette, or choose More to enter the color code manually.
Click Done to apply your changes
Some parts of Windows 10 like the taskbar, apps, Action Center and Start include transparency effects with enhancements like noise textures and blur.
You can enable feature this by opening Settings, clicking on Personalization, selecting Colors, and toggling Transparency effects to on.
You can customize the color accent for Start, Action Center, and Taskbar by opening Settings, choosing Personalization, selecting Colors, and under “More Options” select these items to show colors in these elements.
If you want to see the color accent in the title bars of the File Explorer, check the Title Bars option.
Finally, you can choose a color mode, light or dark. Light works well during the day, and dark mode uses a color scheme optimal for low-light settings. To switch between modes, open Settings, choose Personalization, select Colors, and under “More Options” use the “choose your default app mode” option to change between light and dark.
If you’d like to integrate a comprehensive theme, you can have a wallpaper with additional color accents that will match the Windows background setting. To do this, right-click on your desktop, choose Personalize, Themes, then Theme settings.
Note that you can add themes from Microsoft’s website to download a custom theme. Just download the theme and save it to your Downloads folder. Choose the theme in the Downloads folder and add it to the themes you see listed in the Personalization area.
Customizing the Start Screen
Go to start, and navigate to Settings. Choose Personalize, then select the background, accent color, and background color you want. These colors will show up in a couple of other places too, like the sign-in screen and the charms.
If you’d like to get useful tips and facts from Cortana and Microsoft on the lock screen you can choose this option, but if you turn it off, you can avoid “ads” that might appear on the lock screen.
Customizing the Lock Screen
If you’d like to see a different color background on your Sign-in screen (perhaps you’d like to make your admin account sign-in screen red), you can toggle off the “Show Lock Screen Background Picture” to turn off the background picture you see on the start screen.
The privacy-minded user might be interested in preventing screen app notifications from the lock screen, like unseen emails, or upcoming calendar events. You can remove apps that can appear by opening Settings, choosing Personalization, selecting Lock Screen, and turn off the app.
You can choose to see app notifications by selecting the app button, and navigating to Show Detailed Status. You can choose from apps from the Microsoft Store, or choose none to disable any notifications.
Customizing the Taskbar
If you’ve used older versions of Windows, you’ll likely be familiar with the taskbar. This useful panel offers shortcuts to apps and shows you icons for every running app.
You can start customizing the Taskbar by “pinning” selected apps and shortcuts to it for easy access in the future. You can do this by opening the program, and when the icon appears on the taskbar to show you it is running, right-click on it and choose “Pin to taskbar.”
You can also find an app on the start menu, right-click the app, select more, and click on “pin to taskbar.”
If you have second thoughts, you can right-click the app you have pinned and select “Unpin from the taskbar.”
Jump lists are a quick way to access folders or individual files straight from the Taskbar.
Click on the File Explorer icon, which will display recent folders you have used, navigate to a recent item, and a pushpin will appear to its right. Click on the pushpin and this item will be pinned for easy access.
Jump lists are extremely convenient – a jump list for your browser can display favorite sites and present options like opening new tabs or windows. Meanwhile, an app like Notepad might show recently accessed files.
Does the search box and Cortana icon bug you? It takes up a lot of room on your taskbar and you really don’t need either to search. You can simply push the Windows key and begin typing.
To remove the search box and icon, right-click and choose “Hidden” after selecting Cortana and Show Cortana Icon.
The Task View button will grant you access to a quick view of all of your open apps and windows, virtual desktops, and lets you see your Timeline if this has been enabled.
However, you can just press the Windows key and Tab to get to this interface. To save space on the taskbar, right-click the Taskbar and turn off the option to “Show Task View.”
To the right of the taskbar, you’ll see the Notification Area, where you’ll see system icons like the Action Center and the clock. You’ll also see icons for apps that run in the background. Right-click on any area in the taskbar and click on “Taskbar Settings.” Navigate to the “Notification Area” and choose “Turn System Icons On or Off.”
If you’re used to working on a different Operating System or just want a change, you can move the Taskbar. You might prefer having it to the right or left edge of your display, or even the top. You can right-click on the taskbar and select “Taskbar Settings.”
Find “Taskbar location on-screen” and choose any side of the display you’d like to see your Taskbar on.
To save extra space, you can resize the taskbar. Right-click on the taskbar and turn off “lock taskbar.” Position your mouse at the top of the taskbar and drag to size the Taskbar.
If you’d like to fit a few more icons on the Taskbar as well, you can right-click on it and select “Taskbar Settings.” Then turn on “Use Small Taskbar icons.”
You can also change the transparency and color of the Taskbar. Open Settings, and select “Personalization.” Go to the “Colors” tab. Navigate to “More Options.”
You can toggle on “Transparency Effects” to decide if the Start Menu, Action Center, and Taskbar should be transparent. You can also turn the “Start, taskbar, and action center” on to select a color, or have Windows automatically pick an accent color based on your background.
If you want to take a quick look at the desktop, right-click on the taskbar and select settings. Turn on “Use Peek….”
Finally, you can add a Toolbar to the Taskbar. These are shortcuts to folders on your system. Right-click on the taskbar and select Toolbars.
There are three toolbars that are built into windows
- Desktop – This allows you to access items saved on your desktop.
- Links – this adds items to your Internet Explorer favorites lists.
- Address – Just type a web address in this toolbar and the page will open in your default browser.
To create a custom toolbar that will point to any folder on your system, select “New Toolbar” and select a folder.
First, you can resize the Start Menu, by dragging the right or top edge of your menu with the mouse.
When you resize horizontally, you can add one full column of icon groups at a time, going up to four columns.
If you’d like, you can set Windows to reveal extra tiles in each column by going to Settings, Personalization, Start, and turn on “show more tiles on start.”
To pin an app that isn’t already pinned to the start menu, look through the selection of apps on the left side of your Start menu. Right-click the app and select “pin to start.”
You can change your tile size by right-clicking on a tile, selecting resize, and choosing the size you want.
Here’s the breakdown. Four smaller tiles will fit into a medium tile. Four medium tiles will fit into a larger tile.
You can turn off tile updates if they irritate you. Right-click on a tile, point to more, choose “Turn live tile off.”
Something you might not have known is that you can group tiles into folders on the start menu. To create one, drag any tile and drop it into another one. These tiles will now be grouped into a folder. You can add other tiles by dragging them on the top of a folder.
Once your tiles are in a folder, click on the folder to expand it.
By default, your Start menu will show recently installed, suggested, and most-used apps.
If you don’t like this option, navigate to settings, personalization, then start. Find “Show app list in the Start menu,” “show most used apps,” “recently added apps” and turn them off if you don’t want to see them.
You can select which folders will show up on the Start Menu.
You’ll see User, Pictures, Settings, Documents, and Power options in a small menu on the far left of the Start menu.
If you click the button at the top left of the Start menu, you can expand this section, and you can add things to this area.
Go to Settings, Personalization, then Start. Navigate to the bottom and select “Choose which folders appear on Start.”
Select the folders you want to appear on the Start menu.
You can also expand your start menu to full screen by going to Settings, then Personalization, then Start. Turn on “Use Start full screen.”
Another option is to remove suggested apps from your app list. Go to Settings, Personalization, Start and turn off “Occasionally show suggestions in Start.”
To get rid of junk preinstalled apps and ads, right-click on each one in the start menu and uninstall it.
To remove all the apps list to only have access to your pinned live tiles, you can head to Settings and disable the option to “Show app list in the start menu.”
Finally, you can pin websites to the Start screen. Head to the website, right-click, and select the option “Pin to Start.”
Customizing the Windows Action Center
The Action Center is your go-to spot for notifications and quick actions.
It is a slide-out box that displays and groups notifications and gives you quick options like wi-fi, night light, and quiet hours.
When you get a notification, the Action Center icon in your notification area will turn white.
Click the icon to open the Action Center, which will slide out from the right to see all of your recent notifications grouped by app.
To dismiss notifications, place your mouse over any notification in the Action pane and click on the “Clear Button” in the upper right corner.
Clear all notifications for apps by placing your mouse over the name of the app and click “clear.”
You can clear all notifications by clicking “Clear All” which can be found at the bottom right corner of the Action Center.
You can also customize notifications. Go to Settings, and select “System”
Go to Notifications & Actions.
Find the “Notifications” section to find what you’ll need.
You can decide to:
- Show notifications on the lock screen.
- Show incoming VoIP calls and reminders on your lock screen.
- Turn off the setting to Get Tips, Tricks, and Suggestions.
- Turn off all notifications by turning off the setting “Get notifications from apps and other senders.”
Note that this can be just the beginning of your customization experience. If making a computer system “yours” is important to you, or if you use Windows 10 for work and convenience is key, you’ll find these customization tips.
We recommend exploring all of the settings options to get a better idea of everything Windows 10 is capable of doing.
Knowledge is power, and the more you know about your operating system, the more efficiently you can use it and the more you can enjoy it.
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