CHANGE HOW WINDOWS LOOKS
Add colours to Windows
Compared with the colourful Windows XP, Windows 10 can seem a little dreary. To brighten things up, Winaero Tweaker lets you customise Windows 10’s appearance with the click of a button.
Click the option in the Appearance section, then select Enable Aero Lite (see screenshot right) and you’ll unlock Windows’ hidden Aero Lite theme. This turns the taskbar and Start menu attractive shades of blue, and makes your windows’ title bars and borders dark blue. The theme takes a few seconds to apply, and if you decide you don’t like it you can quickly switch back to the default style by selecting ‘Set Windows default theme’.
Alternatively, click Colored Title Bars, then Enable Colored Title Bars to apply Windows 8.1-style colours to the top of your windows, while leaving other colours as they are. For a less garish redesign that makes Windows easier on the eyes, select Dark Colour Scheme under Appearance. Here you can turn on Windows’ dark theme by deselecting Apps Use Light Theme and System Uses Light Theme. This will apply a night mode to your windows’ title bars, toolbars, menus, backgrounds and more (see page 62 for more dark mode tips).
As with other tweaks that make system-wide changes to Windows, you’ll need to sign out of Windows then log back in for these changes to take effect.
Make scrollbars thicker and increase space between icons
Winaero Tweaker offers several other options for tailoring the appearance of your windows. If, like us, you find the scrollbars in folder windows too narrow, you can make them wider. Simply click Scrollbars in the Advanced Appearance Settings section, drag the ‘Scrollbar width’ slider (see screenshot below) to the right to thicken your scrollbar, then click Apply Changes. This also widens the scrollbar in other programs, such as your web browser. You can use the second slider to increase the size of your scrollbar’s arrow buttons so they match.
You can also add space between file and folder icons in File Explorer. To do this, select Icons in the Advanced Appearance Settings section, then use the sliders to increase the horizontal and vertical spacing of icons in File Explorer and on your desktop. Click ‘Apply Changes’ to save your settings.
Other useful tweaks in Advanced Appearance Settings include increasing the height and width of Window Title Bars and Window Borders (thereby making windows easier to move and resize), and adjusting the spacing above and below Menus at the top of each window (such as the File and Edit menus).
Winaero Tweaker even lets you change the that’s used throughout Windows (such as on title bars) from the default of Segoe UI to dozens of other styles, including Arial, Times New Roman or – if you fancy something a little more quirky – Comic Sans MS.
Redesign your shortcuts
Shortcut icons on your desktop are useful, but the arrows in the bottomright corner of each can look messy. With Winaero Tweaker, you can quickly remove them.
Scroll down to the Shortcuts section and click Shortcut Arrow. Here, you can switch from the default Windows arrow to a smaller ‘classic’ one, disable shortcut arrows altogether or choose a ‘custom’ icon design.
You can also remove the
‘- Shortcut’ suffix that’s added to the name of any shortcuts you create by selecting Disable "- Shortcut" Text. You’ll need to click the Restart Explorer button to apply these changes.
We also like the option to create a Classic Shutdown Shortcut, which restores the shutdown menu from the days of Windows XP and lets you turn off your PC more quickly than the Windows 10 method of clicking the Start button, choosing Power and then ‘Shut down’.
Select the tweak in the Shortcuts section, then click Create Shutdown Shortcut. Drag the new shortcut from your desktop to your taskbar for easy access. You can then click this shortcut to bring up the ‘classic’ Windows shutdown box, allowing you to switch off your PC simply by clicking OK.