Monday, September 10, 2012

Windows 8 Theme: Neuschwanstein Castle

Last night, I collected ten images of the famous Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, and this morning, I resized and cropped those to make a 10-image Windows 8 Theme, and it looks something like this....


Microsoft already has a Windows 7 Theme called 'Castles of Europe' in which there are 24 images of European castles, including one of Neuschwanstein, but I wanted a better one of it, and ended up making my own theme of just that one spectacular castle. 


Adding your own theme to Windows 8 is much the same as for Windows 7:-

(1.) Collect a set of images, and use a photo-editing program like Arcsoft's PhotoStudio to resize them to fit your desktop's native resolution.
(2.) Rename them to include consecutive numbering so they'll display in the order of your choice.
(3.) Create a new folder for them, named DesktopBackground. That's all one word with capital letters at the beginning of both 'Desktop' and 'Background'
because that's the way your Windows Registry likes it.
(4.) Once you've done that, and have all your pictures inside that new folder named DesktopBackground, make another folder named for the name of your new theme, and then drag the DesktopBackground folder into that one.
(5.) Now go into Control Panel, to Folder Options, and click on the 'View' tab.
Look down that list in View for 'Hidden files and folders' and under that click inside the little circle for 'show hidden files, folders, and drives'. Click 'OK' and
close the window(s).
(6.) Now, go into your main user's name folder, where you will see a formerly hidden one called AppData. In AppData, click to open folder Local, then Microsoft, then Windows, and in it look for one named Themes. Drag your newly created theme folder into that Themes folder. Then look inside that Themes folder for the folder named for your new theme, open it to see the DesktopBackground folder, open that, and select all the images. When all images are selected, right-click one of them and from the drop-down list choose 'Set as desktop background'. 
(7.) You should immediately notice that your desktop's background has now changed to an image from your own new theme, and you can close all those open windows on your desktop. Then, right-click anywhere on the desktop and at the bottom of that drop-down's list, click on 'Personalize'. This opens the
Personalization window where you should see your newly-created theme as an icon in the upper left corner of the window, shown as unnamed. Right-click it and give it a name - the one you chose earlier - and then click 'Save Changes'.
(8.) You can now use the buttons along the lower edge of that Personalization window to select the desired timing for each image to be displayed on your monitor during its slideshow-style presentation, and you can also choose the color you like for the taskbar and windows frames to be used while that theme is active. To switch to another theme, as with themes provided by Microsoft, simply click on the one you'd prefer from the ones displayed in the folder, and it will switch to the new choice. Your theme will work just like the ones that came with your Windows 8. So have fun giving your desktop a personal touch.
(9.) Go back to Control Panel => Folder Options => View and reset that entry for 'hidden files, folders, and drives' to hide it again (if you wish).

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