Those lucky enough to use Windows 8 can enjoy its main novelty, the Start screen made of tiles and interactive buttons. The Windows 8.1 Start screen can also be customized in a variety of ways, changing backgrounds and colors and, if you want even more, using some simple additional tools .
Microsoft has omitted some personalization settings for the start screen, so some external and free tools that facilitate the modification can be useful.
- First of all, let's remember how the Windows 8 Start screen opens at any time:
- Windows key on the keyboard (the easiest and fastest)
- key combination: Ctrl + Esc
- By dragging the mouse cursor to the bottom left corner of the screen and clicking with the left button.
- To change the background of the Start screen and the Colors you can open the Settings menu.
The Settings menu appears by moving the mouse cursor to the right corner of the screen and then going to Settings -> Customize .
To do this first, we press the combination of Windows + I keys (from the Start screen and not from the desktop) to quickly open the customization options.
In the Settings screen, what interests us is the first section with the Personalization options of lock screen and Start screen.
For the Start Screen you can choose the background colors.
In Windows 8.1 you can also choose to have the same background on the Start screen as the desktop.
The option is found by right-clicking on the desktop taskbar and then on the exploration tab.
As you will notice, it is not possible to select a custom background or a different color combination than those proposed by Microsoft.
Fortunately there are some small external tools (which only work on Windows 8, not Windows RT).
The best programs to customize the appearance of the Start screen in Windows 8 are:
1) Colorsync to change the colors of the Windows 8 Start screen making them the same as the desktop.
2) ImmersiveTaille allows you to customize the startup screen in several interesting ways that may meet some needs.
This portable application, which does not require installation, is designed to change the size of the startup screen, and move it to user-defined positions: up, down, left or right .
3) OblyTile and PinTo8 are the best free tools for Windows 8 to add new tiles to the Start screen .
With this small little tool you can create and add new tiles with color and custom icon to start files and programs.
4) Start Menu Modifier allows you to open the Start screen inside the desktop so that it becomes possible to use the tiles without leaving the classic desktop.
With this program you can also display the taskbar on the Start screen, which is not bad.
5) With the MetroScaler program, on the other hand, you can change the size of the tiles by making them larger or smaller (such as zooming in or out).
The interface of the tool is very simple and the change remains permanently until you decide to restore the original size of the tiles on the Start screen.
6) Start Screen Animation Tweaker helps to enable hidden animations of the Start screen in a few mouse clicks or to disable them completely (recommended to make Windows 8 faster).
7) TileManager is a portable application to add customized links to files or programs on the Start screen.
8) The easiest of these programs is Decor8 Stardock, from the same Stardock who created the popular Start8 to put the classic start menu back into Windows 8 .
Decor8 allows you to set a background image and different color combinations for your Start screen without Microsoft's limitations.
You can also have a background that changes automatically and you can also customize other parts of the home screen, such as the number of rows of tiles and the styles of animations.
9) Since unfortunately Decor8 is only free for 30 days and then it must be purchased for $ 5, if you want a free program to change the appearance of the Windows 8 Start screen you need to download Windows 8 Start Screen Customizer, less tested but still free.
With this program you can set the desktop background as a background image of the Start screen, select images from any folder as a sequence of background images, change the opacity of the tiles, set the StartScreen transparency, set the rows of tiles according to the resolution of your screen.
Without using external programs and by default, the first group of tiles on the Windows 8 Start screen includes essential utility tools such as Desktop, Calendar, Weather, News etc.
New tiles are added sequentially when they are created and there can be a maximum of 16 tiles in a group.
It is possible to create different groups of buttons by dragging the tiles with the mouse and releasing them on the side column.
Click on the - sign at the bottom right to see an overview of the entire Windows 8 Start menu .
From this enlarged view it is possible to give names to groups by pressing on them with the right mouse button.
Some tiles can be removed or resized by pressing on them with the right button.
In Windows 8, you can also change the lock screen wallpaper from the Start screen Personalization settings.
The screen lock in Windows 8 is something quite useless in normal computers and it is advisable to disable it (see point 6 in the article Small tricks to better use Windows 8 without hassles ).
However, if you like, you can change the lock screen with a background of your choice by pressing the Browse button.
You can also choose which apps should show alerts and notifications on the lock screen, especially useful for Windows 8 tablets.
Obviously also in Windows 8 you can customize the Desktop, the background and the colors of the windows.
To choose a color for the window border, right click on the desktop and select Personalize (or press Windows - I and then click on Personalization ).
You can change the intensity of a selected color to do it as you like.
As with Windows 7, you can also choose a custom desktop wallpaper or set a dynamic wallpaper.
As seen, you can also download and install different themes for Windows 8 from the Microsoft gallery.
Remember, in other articles:
- Make Windows 8 as fast as possible
- 8 ways to customize Windows 8 (PC settings and Start Menu)
- Guide to optimize Windows 8 and decrease the consumption of system resources
