Personalization in Windows - customizing the design of the operating system to your individual (personal) tastes and needs. The user can change the theme, color, desktop background, sounds, screensaver, font size, avatar, etc. on his computer according to his preferences.
The combination of images, colors, sounds, splash screen is called a theme. Your computer already has themes ready to use, you can create and customize the theme as you wish.
In the article, we will get acquainted with the personalization settings in Windows 10, you will learn where you can download official Microsoft themes and wallpapers (backgrounds) for the Desktop, how to install or remove the theme from the computer, where the themes are stored on the computer, how to extract the desired image from the theme.
Personalization settings can be accessed from the Start menu. Select Options and then Personalization. It’s even easier to enter the settings as follows: right-click on a free area of the monitor screen, and select “Personalization” from the context menu.
Personalization in Windows 10
In the "Personalization" window, in the "Background" tab, select an image for the desktop background. The following options are available for displaying the background:
- Photo - a separate image serves as a background
- Solid color - the selected color will be used as the background
- Slideshow - background images will change at regular intervals
When choosing one of the options, you will need to make settings: select a photo, select a background color, select albums for a slide show. In each case, select the desired settings. Here you can select the position of the background: "fill", "fit", "stretch", "tesse", "center", "expand".
In the "Colors" tab, select the main color for the design of Windows. In the settings, you can enable automatic selection of the main background color, change the color display options in the Start menu, on the Taskbar and in the Action Center.
In the "Lock screen" tab, you can configure the background that will be displayed on the monitor screen when the computer is locked. There is a choice of three options for displaying the background of the lock screen: "Windows: Interesting", "Photo", "Slideshow".
From the "Themes" tab, you go to the theme options, and related options: "Advanced sound options", "Desktop icon options", "Mouse pointer options".
We will discuss the theme options in more detail later. If necessary, adjust the sound settings, mouse pointer settings. Enter the desktop icon settings.
In the Desktop Icon Options window, select the icons you want to display on the desktop, and then click the OK button. To remove an icon from the Desktop, uncheck the box next to the corresponding icon, and then click on the "OK" button.
In the "Start" tab, you can configure the parameters of the "Start" menu. The user himself selects the settings according to his preferences: the number of tiles displayed, the display of recommendations, the order in which applications are displayed, etc.
Saving a Theme in Windows
Open the Themes tab, click on Theme Options. This will open the Personalization window. Here you will see the default themes and themes you have added. Windows 10 comes with three default themes: Windows, Windows 10, Flowers. To activate a theme on your computer, click on the relevant theme.
If the theme is named Unsaved Theme, click the Save Theme link to save and name the theme.
How to download themes
Users find desktop themes and wallpapers on the Internet, many do not even suspect that you can download Microsoft themes and wallpapers from the official website of the corporation. Official themes and wallpapers can be found on the Personalization Gallery page. In the personalization gallery you will find themes, desktop backgrounds, language packs.
The site has a wide range of topics. Topics are organized into collections: Animals, Art (drawings), Art (photos), Automobiles, Games, Holidays and seasons, Movies, Natural wonders, Places and Landscapes, Plants & Flowers, Branded Themes, Community Based, Panoramic (Dual Monitors), Custom Sounds, Compatible with Windows 7, Compatible with New Windows.
You can download and install any theme from this collection on your computer. Windows 7 users can download and install on their computer many of the themes from the Microsoft Gallery that support this operating system.
Enter the relevant collection, select a topic, click on the "More" link. Here you will see detailed information about the topic: the number of images in this topic, the color of the window, an example image on the computer screen. View all the images included in the theme, if the theme suits you, download the theme to your computer.
How to delete a theme in Windows
If you no longer need this theme, you can delete the theme from your computer. The theme to be deleted must not be active at the time of deletion. Hover your mouse over a topic, right-click on the topic, and then click on Delete Topic.
How to download wallpaper
In the Personalization Gallery window, go to the Desktop Backgrounds tab. Wallpapers (backgrounds) are combined into image collections: Animals, Art (drawings), Art (photos), Cars, Games, Holidays and seasons, Natural wonders, Places and Landscapes, Plants & Flowers, Signature Wallpapers, From Community, Panoramas, All Wallpapers.
After clicking on the image, the image will expand. You can save the image you like to your computer to use as your desktop background.
Any image can be used on a computer as desktop wallpaper. To do this, right-click on the image, and select "Set as desktop background image" from the context menu.
Where are Windows 10 themes stored?
The default themes are stored on your computer in the "Web" folder. In order to get to this folder, go to the following path (the standard Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7 desktop wallpapers are stored in this place):
C:\Windows\Web
In the "Web" folder, you will find three folders: "4K", "Screen", "Wallpaper". The 4K folder contains the official Windows 10 splash screen in various resolutions. The "Screen" folder stores the images used for the lock screen splash screen. The "Wallpaper" folder contains folders with three official themes, in which the images included in these themes are stored.
If you like a particular image from a theme and want to use that image as your desktop background, you can copy the image to another location and then make that image your desktop background.
Self-downloaded themes on your computer are stored elsewhere. There are two ways to extract a single image from such a topic.
First way. Unpack the downloaded but not yet installed theme on your computer using an archiver, such as WinRAR or 7-Zip. In the folder you will find all the images included in the theme.
The second way. You will find images that are part of a theme already installed on your computer in a folder named after the theme, which is located in the following path:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\
Where is the lock screen wallpaper stored
You can find standard lock screen background images in the Screen folder. If the Windows: Interesting option is selected in the lock screen background settings, then the Windows 10 operating system downloads images from the Internet to the computer. These images can be used not only as a lock screen saver, they can be used as a desktop background.
The downloaded images that are used as the background of the lock screen are in this path:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets
The Assets folder contains files downloaded to your computer. Copy the file from this folder to a convenient location on your computer. Next, rename the file, give the file some name with a ".jpg" extension, such as "picture.jpg".
After that, you can use this image as your desktop background.
Article Conclusions
The user can customize the design of the Windows 10 operating system to suit their individual needs. These settings are called personalization. From the official site, you can download and install Microsoft themes and wallpapers on your computer. You can use any image included in the theme as your desktop wallpaper.
Personalize Windows 10 How to download Microsoft themes and wallpapers (video)
