Take it to the next level
TAKE PRECAUTIONS
We’re entering potentially risk territory with some of these tips. Therefore, make sure you have some kind of system backup in place – either a rollback option like System Restore or Rollback Rx or an up-to-date drive image using Macrium Reflect Free ( www.macrium.
com/reflectfree.aspx). Done that? Good, let’s move on…
CUSTOMISE LOCK SCREEN
Can’t tweak the lock screen to your satisfaction using the options under Settings > Personalisation > ‘Lock screen’? Check the ‘Boot and Logon’ section of Winaero Tweaker for options, like not automatically selecting the last logged-on user by default or adding a limit to how long the slideshow feature plays for.
GRAB LOCK SCREEN IMAGES
If you’re using the Windows Spotlight feature to display rotating background images, and you’d like a permanent copy of any or all of them, select Find Lock Screen Images in Winaero Tweaker followed by ‘Get this one’ under the current photo (if it’s displayed) to save it, or ‘Get all images stored on this PC’ to copy them to a desktop folder.
APPLY THE AERO LITE THEME
Aero Lite is a no-frills theme particularly suited for low-end PCs such as 2-in-1 tablets. If you think it might help with performance – or want to see if its clean and simple lines appeal – then open Winaero Tweaker and click ‘Enable Aero Lite (default)’ under Appearance > Aero Lite. You can undo it from here, too.
CUSTOMISE AERO LITE
Once enabled, select Window Borders under Advanced Appearance Settings to change the width and padding of windows – changes are performed in real-time. You can also change the height of the window title bar and change the font – this requires logging off and on again, but also works with other desktop themes too.
CHANGE WINDOWS’ START-UP SOUND
You can customise your Windows sound scheme by typing sounds into the Settings search box and selecting ‘Change system sounds’. What you can’t do from here is change the Windows start-up sound. Instead, navigate to Appearance > Startup Sound in Winaero Tweaker and you can apply your own choice of WAV file in place of the default. If your chosen file is in another audio format, convert it using Pazera Free Audio Extractor
( www.pazera-software.com/products/ audio-extractor/).
SWITCH SYSTEM FONTS
Tired of the rather conservative Segoe UI font
used by Windows for its desktop components? Swap it out for something more glamorous (but legible) via Winaero Tweaker’s Advanced Appearance Settings > System Font screen. Log out and back in again to see the effect.
REDUCE WINDOW CLUTTER
You’ve added tabs to File Explorer, how about grouping application windows in a single multi-tabbed window, too? TidyTabs (www. nurgo-software.com) lets you drag up to three windows on top of each other to group them, then use the tabs to switch. Upgrade to the Pro version (a measly US$9) and you can automatically group windows from the same application together, plus group more than three windows at once.
GET THE AERO GLASS LOOK
If you’re a tech-savvy Windows 8.1 user, head to www.glass8.eu/ to download Aero Glass for Windows 8 if you’d like to restore the translucent Aero effects from Windows 7. Aero Glass technically works with Windows 10 too, although we haven’t had much luck in getting any of the effects to work.
The most radical change you can make to Windows is to replace the default shell with another one. One of the simplest to deploy is Cairo ( https://cairodesktop.com/) – during installation, leave the default settings so it installs alongside File Explorer and not in place of it.
SET UP APPS
After installation, Cairo opens the App Grabber to enable you to choose which app shortcuts to add to the Programs menu at the top of the screen. Drag those you want into the left-hand pane, then click Continue to place them in sub-folders such as ‘System tools’ or Office. Click ‘Finish’.
USE THE MENU BAR
Cairo’s menu bar offers shortcuts to Programs, Places (user folders, This PC, Program Files and the Recycle bin), Documents and Downloads. There are various system tools and shortcuts on the right – click ‘<’ to reveal your Taskbar notification area icons. Click the Cairo menu button in the top left-hand corner for a slimmed-down Start menu (plus access to Cairo’s settings, or choose Exit Cairo to return to the regular desktop).
NAVIGATE FOLDERS WITH CAIRO
You’ll see a list of files and folders on the desktop that correspond to those on your desktop. A floating bar enables you to change the folder shown using the navigation buttons to move up and down the folder tree, go back to the ‘home’ desktop folder or jump to a different folder.
CAIRO’S DOCK
Last, but not least, is Cairo’s dock – its replacement for the Taskbar. It exclusively displays shortcut icons and open windows – click to open, right-click for more options or ‘=’ to open Task View for a preview of open windows.