Controlling the Desktop Appearance in Windows Vista - Controlling Desktop Theme and Appearance
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As mentioned briefly in Chapter 1, a user or administrator can control virtually every single aspect of the Windows Vista desktop. This includes the desktop backgrounds, colors, screensavers, sounds, and icons that can personalize the computing environment.
The most sweeping changes to the desktop environment can be applied through the use of themes, which serve, essentially, as combinations of backgrounds, colors, sounds, and so forth. A few are included with the Vista installation, and you can download more still. To change a theme, follow these steps:
- Open the Personalization application from Vista’s Control Panel. You can shortcut this by right-clicking on the desktop and choosing Personalize.
- Follow the Theme link toward the bottom of this Personalization console, opening the Theme Settings dialog box as shown in Figure 4-20.
Figure 4-20. Changing the Vista theme
The cool thing here is the Save As feature. Any changes you’ve made to any part of the desktop environment can now be saved as part of a new, customized theme. In fact, notice that if you do something such as change the desktop background (to the green bamboo wallpaper shown in the figure—very attractive), you will then see the theme listed as Modified Theme. Just click Save As from here for the ability to change back to this background (and any associated sounds, icons, etc.) at any time without going through the extra click-steps.
Although I don’t want to belabor the point, I do want to be clear about what components are part of a theme. Here are the primary settings that, once changed, can be saved as part of a new theme. Also included are instructions about how to change each element. It’s fairly straightforward stuff; if you’ve changed a desktop background in Windows XP, 2000, or 98, you should be able to figure out what to do. But just in case:
Screensavers
From the Personalization Control Panel application, choose the Screen Saver link. Then, in the Screen Saver Settings dialog box, choose the desired screensaver from the drop-down menu. You then have a few other ways to govern behavior, such as the amount of time before the screensaver takes over.
Some screensavers, such as the 3D text screensaver, have additional settings you can configure.
Sounds
Follow the Sounds link from the Personalization Control Panel application to open the Sound dialog box, shown in Figure 4-21. Here, from the Sounds tab, you can select almost any Windows action and then preview or change the default sound associated with the action. You can then save a list of customized sounds as a Sound Scheme with the Save As button to allow for quick toggling among different sets of Windows sounds without having to manually reconfigure.
Mouse pointers
To change the look and behavior of the mouse pointer, follow the Mouse Pointers link in the Personalization Control Panel application. From here, you will see the Mouse dialog box with several tabs to fine-tune mouse settings, some of which will be hardware-dependent. For example, if you’re using a laptop, you’ll probably see two Buttons tabs: one for the touchpad built into the laptop, and one for the mouse you may connect when you’re not on the go. Other mouse pointer options include mouse speed and visibility options.
Desktop background
For changes to the desktop background, follow the—you guessed it—Desktop Background link in the Personalization Control Panel application. Now you’ll see a selection drop-down list that lets you specify a picture location (the default is the Windows Wallpapers location;
%systemroot% \Web\Wallpapers) and then choose the desired picture. And of course, you can select any picture on your hard drive as the desktop background by browsing to it.
Color schemes
From the Personalization Control Panel application, choose Window Color and Appearance to change options that affect window colors. Note also that this dialog box will change depending on whether Areo is the selected color scheme. If so, you see options that can change the color and transparency of the glass. If not, you see an Appearance dialog box similar to what has been available in previous versions of Windows.
Figure 4-21. Changing a Windows sound
And remember, once you’ve spent a few hours making changes to elements that comprise a Vista theme, make sure to save your changes by accessing the Themes link and saving—a big timesaver when you want to apply the same settings some time in the future.
Next: Something Cool About Vista Desktop Backgrounds >>
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 This article is excerpted from chapter four of the book Windows Vista Administration: The Definitive Guide, written by Brian Culp (O'Reilly; ISBN: 0596529597). Check it out today at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.
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