HOW TO GET THE LOOK

With children’s accounts, the golden rule is to keep things simple. Fiddling around with Rainmeter skins like we did for the gaming and office sections is asking for trouble.

Each account can have its own backgrounds and themes, and that’s a sensible idea because it makes it immediately obvious to a passing parent if a kid has somehow sneaked back onto a parent’s account.

Microsoft has a huge range of attractive Windows themes that are somewhat tucked out of sight in the Windows Store. Go in there and search for “themes” and you’ll find a section devoted to them, from which the kids can take their pick. When we explained this to our stroppy 16-year-old, we hit a six or seven on the enthusiasm scale, which is near unprecedented.

The theme you can see highlighted at the top here is called Dogs In Winter. However, older kids might prefer something such as the Xbox Series X theme, which scrolls through a series of closeup photos of Microsoft’s new console. Whatever their interests, there’s almost guaranteed to be something that grabs them.

With younger kids, in particular, it might also pay to spend some time weeding and simplifying the Start menu for them. Use the Start menu settings to turn off the All Apps list that runs down the left-hand side and organise their Start tiles into sensible groups, such as School and Games. Make the tiles at least medium in size (by rightclicking on the tile) so that they’re easier to select. Get rid of any tiles the kids won’t use via the right-click menu once more.