Customize Win. 8 Start Screen same as Desktop Background

Customize Windows 8 Start Screen same as Desktop Backgrounds.

Jan 20, 13 • All In One, Cyber Bigies, Editor's Picks, Microsoft • 4 Comments • Read More »

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“In Windows 7 & Windows 8 there are numerous themes available officially from Microsoft which can be downloaded & installed to get desired Desktop Background, Colours, Sounds & Screen Savers, Which can be reached by right clicking on any part of the desktop screen and then selecting “Personalize”. This personalization shows different backgrounds which continuously keep on changing.”

The very effect which was provided the famous “Webshots” software in Windows XP. A these desktop backgrounds are available as a bunch file called “Themes” in Windows 7 & Windows 8. What we are going to do is we are going to extract these desktop backgrounds as single image files & then add that to Windows 8 Start Screen. When, I am writing this post I don’t see any such things when I search on Google. I don’t know yesterday how it came to my mind.

So coming back to the point, this process can be performed in simple two step process.

Extracting.
Changing default Start Screen.

Extracting File for Customising Windows 8 Start Screen :

Tough there are many a ways of doing this. The best and easiest is what I am going to suggest you all. First go to this LINK (Link might change depending on your country, also many other sources are available, just Google) , there are numerous themes to search from, provided officially by Microsoft.

Click details to see the Desktop Backgrounds.
Download the theme then.
Activate the theme.
Now right click on Desktop & select from dropdown “Personalization”.
Click “Desktop Backgrounds”.
Now drag all images to Desktop. As shown in figure below.

Also Read : Make your own Windows 7 Themes. In doing so, you can also customize Sounds, Screen Savers & Colours with your images.

Now making custom Start Screen with Image Files.

Start Screen is an added feature in Windows 8. It consists of Windows 8 Apps. A Start Background & a Scroll Bar. Unfortunately Microsoft hasn’t given much of the power to customize the Start Screen except option to choose Colour & 20 designs to select from. But I can give you a name of one small utility which can be used to change the Background of Start Screen. Let’s enjoy playing with it & join my party.

The freeware is called “Start Screen customizer”, which even doesn’t need any installation at all. Download links are : LINK1 (Download, unzip & rename .ex_ to .exe and execute), Link2 (Box Download, unzip rename .ex_ to .exe). With this small utility you can personalize the look and feel of Windows 8 Start Screen.

You can go back and restore the default settings, can use a custom image as the background, as well as modify the colours and their opacity. Here, there is also a option to set Desktop Background as Windows 8 Start Screen, but it didn’t work for me. Its a bit buggy, at the least you can keep a single image file in synchronization (When background changes images in Start Screen does not change).

Windows 8 Start Screen Customizer

You can choose a picture and select the cropped area to be shown as background picture, set the Start Screen transparency level, set the no. of rows for your tiles, run it on start-up hidden, so you can see your custom background as soon as this tool starts.

Final : Click “Select Pictures” & select images extracted from Windows Themes. Click Slideshow. Also, select “Run at startups”. Click “Apply & Save”.

There is one another tool to mention here Decor8 which is not free. But, Techspot offers this free with a 30-day trial. & later asks a modest $4.99 for the app. Decor8 features options that can change the Windows 8 Start Screen radically, not only by applying a different background image but also by modifying the color scheme. The layout is very simple, with the menus on the left-hand side & options are displayed on the right.

Changing the background picture is a simple job that does not entail more steps than selecting the image and applying it. Apart from having a batch of beautiful images from the developer, you can also add your own image. Furthermore, the application can work with entire folders of images and rotate them at a user-defined frequency. Thus, we can even Customize Start Screen with images from Windows Themes.

Post By Shailendra Singh Bais (103 Posts)

Shailendra Singh Bais is Part-Time Blogger by Profession. He is from India. He assumes this to be a Netizen's Stop. Where Netizen's Stop for many of their online need of knowledge. We try to fill the gap between Cyber Bigges and common man. Stay tuned to our site. Connect Via Social Buttons, above. Connect me at Facebook, Twitter & Google+ I am mostly active on Facebook & Via Email: admin@netizensstop.com.

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