Customize Start Screen in Windows 8

Introduction

Microsoft has launched Windows 8 Release Preview. Windows 8 means much more to Microsoft. It is full of rich features and Metro apps that make a good user interface experience. In the Windows 8 Release Preview, there are a few new features for the users such as new color choices, some support for Flash in the Metro browser, a new set of default apps, and enhanced multi-monitor support top the list. Microsoft apps in the Release Preview include Sports, Travel, and News, all three of which make good use of photos and information from Bing.

In Windows 8 Release Preview most of the bundled apps such as News, Sports, and Travel, Calendar, People, Messaging, Windows Store, Bing Maps now have new tiles, with new colors and new designs.

In Windows, the Control Panel is used for the system's PC settings but in the Windows 8 Release Preview, there is a new feature in Windows 8 called PC Settings, that lets you change the important settings of your PC. In the Consumer Preview, this was called More PC Settings, but in the Release Preview, it's changed to Change PC Settings. Using the PC Settings option, you can change the Personalized Settings, User Settings, and other Settings.

In this article, we will discuss how to personalize your PC settings such as change background patterns, changing color schemes, etc.

Accessing Setting

Access the Charm Bar on the right side of the screen or press WINKEY + I on your keyboard.
Click on Settings.

After clicking on Settings, you will click on Change PC Settings that shows up in the end.

Select the personalized option from the left sidebar.

The Personalize view in PC Settings provides three types of setting options such as Lock Screen, Start Screen, and Account Picture.

Lock Screen You can change the Lock Screen. In this option, we can change the background image of the PC when our system is in locked mode. There are some predefined options available and even we can choose an image using the browse option.

The next is lock screen apps that enable the user to choose apps such as Calendar, Mail, Messaging, and Weather to run in the background and show quick status and notification, even when your screen is locked. You have to click on the plus sign to select the app.

After changing the setting, lock the screen to see the changes made in the setting. To lock the screen press the Ctrl+Alt+Insert keys from the keyboard.

Start Screen In the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Microsoft provided six types of start screen background patterns. It will also show a preview of selected patterns.

The next is color schemes that let the user select the background color of the start screen. You just tap one of the 26 choices along a bar, and the background instantly changes to reflect your choice.

After setting the set the start screen looks like this.

Account Picture The last option is for setting your account picture. Click on Browse and select the picture needed for your account from your computer and then select choose image. You can also create a picture using a camera by clicking on create an account picture.

After setting the account picture it will look like this:

Summary

In this article, we learned about Customize Start Screen in Windows 8.