Starting with version XP, in Windows it became possible to easily change the desktop picture and adjust the color scheme, and use various schemes designs that are different in their demands on resources. For example, if you don’t want memory to be wasted on video effects like smoothly minimizing windows and the like, you can assign the “Classic” theme to XP.

And also work with some registry settings that are responsible for displaying interface elements. Similar actions are recommended to owners weak computers. Windows 7 also has a similar feature and it’s called “simplified style”. How to put a simplified style in Windows system 7 we will discuss in our note.

Your ancestry Windows interface 7 leads from the Aero interface, which originated in previous version systems – Vista. IN new version Some more design elements were added to the OS, but in general the “Seven” desktop remains very similar to its progenitor.

Vista also included an option to force special effects to be turned off. It was there that the simplified style appeared as a separate Windows concept. This is where the technology first emerged. automatic switching to a simplified style if the computer resources were insufficient to function operating system in normal mode.

When else is it recommended to switch the desktop to a simplified display of its elements? The first example that comes to mind is the removal of special effects to provide better performance games. Current operating systems spend a lot of resources on the GUI. These resources can be freed up for more practical use. True, this is achieved at the expense of some loss in terms of visual design. So, how to manually set the simplified style in Windows 7?

Enable simplified style

The Windows 7 operating system offers two options for accessing the simplified style:

• Through the "Control Panel". To do this, you need to open the “Control Panel”, go to the “System and Security” section, the “Performance” subsection, and configure work in simplified mode in the settings.
• Through the “Personalization” menu of the desktop: click right click mouse by free space on the display, select the “Personalization” menu item and select the simplified mode.

Here's what it looks like in the picture:

Settings Windows design 7

Some desktop design options are set by you or someone else when you install the operating system, such as the background image (“wallpaper”). But this does not mean that such a background image will torment you with its appearance forever. Everything can be changed. This applies to both the appearance of the windows and the sounds during various actions.

To change the design settings of Windows 7, right-click on an area of ​​the Desktop free of windows and icons (Fig. 2.33).

Rice. 2.33. Calling the Windows appearance settings window

Attention!

When it changes various settings Windows, you will see that some elements of the settings windows are marked with

(for example, buttons that call additional windows with settings). This means that system administrator rights are required to perform the action of the specified item. When installing the operating system, a user with administrator rights must be created. If you are not running as an administrator user, the system will not allow you to use the item marked with the specified icon.

A. N. Lebedev. “Windows 7 and Office 2010. Computer for beginners. I have to go to work tomorrow"

In the appeared context menu select Personalization. The window shown in Fig. will open. 2.34.

Rice. 2.34. Personalization window

Themes

The theme is ready set settings for the screensaver, desktop wallpaper, windows and sounds for various events. You can configure all of these settings manually individually (we'll look at how to do this later), or you can simply select the theme you like.

The main field of the Personalization window, where you see phrases with the word "theme", shows Windows 7 themes (for example, Windows 7, Architecture, Characters). You can select a theme by clicking on the theme icon or its name. Once you do this, the corresponding theme will be enabled.

Changing the appearance of windows

To change the appearance Windows windows 7 You need to click on Window Color.

This will open the Color window and appearance windows (Fig. 2.35). The rectangular box in the center of the window shows an example of the current design of the window and its elements. Below this field is the Element list.

A. N. Lebedev. “Windows 7 and Office 2010. Computer for beginners. I have to go to work tomorrow"

Rice. 2.35. Window color and appearance In this list you can select the element of the window or desktop that you want

tune. After that, the parameters of the selected element that can be changed will appear to the right and below this drop-down list.

Desktop Background

To open the settings window background picture On the desktop, select Desktop Background.

The window that appears (Fig. 2.36) shows thumbnails (reduced images) of various background images. Windows Developers 7 did their best and provided you with a wide variety of drawings.

A. N. Lebedev. “Windows 7 and Office 2010. Computer for beginners. I have to go to work tomorrow"

Rice. 2.36. Setting the desktop wallpaper

All these images are contained in a special folder Desktop backgrounds Windows desktop. This can be seen in the Picture Position drop-down list. You can search for pictures in several more folders, a list of which is visible if you click on this drop-down list.

Maybe you drew a picture for the Desktop yourself? Or do you have a good photo on your hard drive that's suitable for the background? You can select any image saved as a file on your computer's hard drive as your Desktop background. To do this, click the Browse button. As a result, a window will open to select a folder. You will encounter such windows more than once when working with various Windows applications 7. An example of a folder opening window is shown in Fig. 2.37.

A. N. Lebedev. “Windows 7 and Office 2010. Computer for beginners. I have to go to work tomorrow"

Rice. 2.37. Folder selection window In the window that opens, click on the triangle to the left of the Computer folder

or by the name of the folder itself. The result will be a list logical drives on the hard drive of your computer, as well as CD and DVD drives and any other connected storage devices (Fig. 2.38).

A. N. Lebedev. “Windows 7 and Office 2010. Computer for beginners. I have to go to work tomorrow"

Rice. 2.38. List of logical drives Click on the name of the drive on which you saved the picture file. At

This will display a list of folders contained on the selected disk (Fig. 2.39). If your picture folder is inside another folder, find that folder's name and click on it. Having found the folder with the picture, click on it and then click OK. As a result, pictures from this folder will be displayed in the window shown in Fig. 2.36 and you can choose any of them.

A. N. Lebedev. “Windows 7 and Office 2010. Computer for beginners. I have to go to work tomorrow"

Rice. 2.39. Contents of drive C:

You, of course, understand that the size of the picture may not match the size of the screen. The Picture Position drop-down list determines how to place the background image on the Desktop. Available options: Fill, Fit, Stretch, Tile, Center.

The pictures to the left of the corresponding options for placing the picture show how this will happen. Let's look at each case.

Filling – the image size is adjusted vertically while maintaining the image proportions so as to fill the entire Desktop.

Fit to size – the image size is adjusted horizontally while maintaining the image proportions so as to fill the entire Desktop.

Stretch – the picture is stretched vertically and horizontally so as to fill the entire desktop.

Tile – if the size of the picture smaller size Desktop, it is repeated many times until it fills the entire surface of the Desktop.

Centered – the picture is displayed in the center of the Desktop with its original dimensions.

You can select multiple images at once. They will replace each other after the time you specify. To do this, select the first of the desired images by clicking the mouse, and then press the Ctrl key on the keyboard and, without releasing it, click on the other images. As a result, all the images you have marked will be marked with check marks. In this case, the Change picture every drop-down list will become available, where you can select the duration of display of each picture.

IN Lately I began to notice that most of the "seven" users use standard theme design, which the developers affectionately called Aero.

In my opinion, it is too focused on tablets. This is evidenced by the huge window control buttons and excessively wide title bars and window frames - all this makes the interface somewhat cumbersome. In addition, the developers were too clever with the variety color range: all these transparencies, shimmers, gradients and other delights create a kind of muddy effect.

Perhaps someone likes it this way, someone doesn’t care, someone is used to it, and someone simply doesn’t know that all this can be changed.

Visual Styles

Visual styles include all window graphics, controls, backgrounds and font settings. This list does not include, perhaps, only the “Start” button, the “Forward” and “Back” navigation buttons, as well as icons.

Themes

A bunch of topics can be found on DeviantArt "e.

Themes are simply a file describing what should be used. This includes himself visual style, some icons, screensavers, wallpapers, cursors and some other elements.

It's worth mentioning that sometimes themes can be geared towards different settings Taskbars. So, for example, for large panel tasks on the right and for the small one on top can be intended different topics. Usually developers add an appropriate prefix to them, such as “Top” or “Left”.

Installing themes

All themes are stored in the path %SystemRoot%\Resources\Themes\. After which they can be selected in the “Personalization” window.

But it's not that simple. Initially, it is forbidden to install unsigned Microsoft themes. To get around this limitation, you need to patch three dlls. To do this, there is a simple open-source program called Universal Theme Patcher for Windows(Official website, download, mirror).
Disable UAC, run it with administrator rights and click on the three Patch buttons. This operation it is absolutely safe, in addition, the program automatically makes backups so that you can restore the original files if something happens. For 64bit it is recommended to patch with both versions, because The system contains both 32 and 64 bit dlls.
After this, restart the computer.

Now all that's left to do is move necessary topics in %SystemRoot%\Resources\Themes\ and select them in “Personalization”. Having done this, you will see that the window design has changed, but the “Start” and navigation buttons remain. The thing is that they are tightly “hardwired” into the system files. Therefore, most themes now come with already modified files that will simply need to be replaced.

Replacing system files

They also buried our dog here. To replace system files with our modified versions, we need to become the owner of these files. To do this, we will use the TakeControl utility (download, mirror). Run as administrator and add the following files to the list:

• C:\Windows\exlporer.exe
• C:\Windows\System32\ExplorerFrame.dll
• C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll
• C:\Windows\System32\timedate.cpl

Lazy people can simply import list.fls, located next to the program :)
Then click on “Take control” and wait for the process to complete. There is no need to reboot.

Now all we have to do is replace original files to those available in the topic. To do this, add to source files prefix _old, then move the patched file to the place of the old one. You can do it easier and use Theme Manager, the link to which is just below. He will do everything himself.

ATTENTION:

1. Theme developers usually make two versions system files: for x86 and for 64 separately.
2. Don't be lazy to check the file versions! If they do not agree, then most likely you will have to do a recovery via live-cd or “System Restore”
3. After replacing shell32.dll, you may lose multi-channel audio.

We reboot and see the updated appearance.

Additional setup

Sometimes it happens that authors shove some non-Cyrillic fonts into the topic and make them bold italic , or just the size is too small. This is where Color and Appearance Settings come to the rescue. In them you can change the colors, fonts and sizes used for each individual type of element. By the way, this also includes frames and headers, that is, you can change their size, although on the standard theme in some places this causes artifacts to appear.

Icons

You probably noticed some non-standard icons in my taskbar. This can be done in two ways: manually create a bunch of shortcuts, change the icons in them and push them onto the panel, or use the 7conifier utility (download, mirror).

It automatically replaces icons required applications based on the rules described in package.xml. Everything here is quite simple, so there is no point in explaining it manually.

And on the same deviart there are ready-made packs that almost completely replace system icons. One of the most popular is Faenza IconPack, which is so hated on ENT.

Simplifying your life

Below I will give short review some useful programs, which can help you set up.

Theme Manager (Official website, download, mirror)

Allows you to install themes with just one click. All you have to do is indicate necessary files and install the theme, specify the name and apply. A special feature of the program is that you can save topics with all resources in zip containers. Moreover, this feature is, as it were, hidden from view - it can only be evoked with the help of hot Ctrl keys+ E and Ctrl + I.

Logon Screen Changer (download, mirror)

And with the help of this software you can change the background of the welcome screen, as well as change some other parameters.

Navigation Panel Customizer (Official site, download, mirror)

This is an easy way to remove unnecessary items from the left menu of Explorer.

Taskbar Item Pinner (Official site, download, mirror)

And with this thing you can attach absolutely any element to the Taskbar, be it a folder, a file, or even a separator.

In this lesson you will learn how to change background picture on the desktop in Windows 7. By default, the system already has a number of images and, as you will see, changing them is very easy. You can also install your photos or images taken from the Internet on your desktop. You can find suitable pictures on countless websites with huge selection wallpaper for every taste. You can easily find these sites, go to any of search engines(I recommend using Google or Yandex), enter the query “desktop wallpaper” in the search bar.

Changing the desktop wallpaper in Windows 7

You can change your Windows 7 desktop wallpaper by right-clicking on your desktop and selecting Personalize.

In the window that opens, select the “Desktop Background” option.

There are already some preset images here, and to select your own image, use the “Browse” button.

Now all that remains is to confirm your actions by clicking on the “Save Changes” button, the picture on the desktop will change to yours.

As in Windows XP, in Windows 7 there is an option that affects how the picture will be positioned on the desktop, here it is called “Image Position”, the “Fill” item is most often used.

To joy Windows users 7, it already has a built-in feature automatic change desktop background, and there is no need to use third-party programs.

Using this option, you can, having previously selected several pictures, set the order and interval for their change.

Windows 7 decoration

In addition to changing the desktop background, in the Personalization window, it is very easy to change the theme.

The theme changes not only the background, but also colors, sounds, mouse pointer shapes, etc...

If it's not enough for you installed themes, then you can take advantage of the opportunity to download new topics from the Internet, to do this, just click the link “Other topics on the Internet”

You can also create your own themes by changing the “Desktop Background”, “Window Color”, “Sounds”, and “Splash Screen”

How to change wallpaper in Windows 7 Starter?

Unfortunately, not all versions of Windows 7 allow you to change the desktop background. The younger version of the seven - “Starter”, is deprived of this opportunity. This can be circumvented using a small and very simple program called Starter Wallpaper Changer. It’s very easy to use, you don’t need to install it, just unzip it and it’s ready to use right away.

Using the “Browse” button, select the image you need and click the “Apply” button.

For the changes to take effect, you must log out of your account. account and log in again, and the picture on your desktop will change.

Using the “Restore” button, you can always return your native Windows 7 Starter background.

Download the program to change wallpaper in Windows 7 Starter

Recently at work I was asked to buy a laptop as a gift for a foreigner. Everyone understands that in Russia laptops are aimed at Russian-speaking users and it is quite difficult to find a laptop with a pre-installed English operating system. You could, of course, buy a laptop without an operating system. Buy English Windows and install it yourself. But, you know, I didn’t want to have unnecessary difficulties with installing and searching for drivers, since this often happens with laptops. Therefore, I decided to buy a laptop with Windows preinstalled.

Quite recently, a new operating system from the small soft ones went on sale - Windows 7. Wonderful. I have already tested it on my home computer. It works stably and quite quickly. Better than Vista. Therefore, the choice of preinstalled operating system was determined. There was only one tricky BUT. Windows 7 has several editions that differ in the set of different features...

Users of Windows 7 Ultimate or Windows 7 Enterprise know that changing the interface language is a simple matter. Go to the control panel, click "Clock, language and region", and then select "Change interface language". Well, then you simply choose from the list provided in which language you want to view your interface. If desired language is not in the list, then you need to select "Install or remove interface languages" and install new language from batch file. The file can be downloaded from the Microsoft website or via Windows Update from section " optional updates". It's simple.

Users of others Windows editions 7 such as Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium and Porfessional, changing the interface language is not allowed. If you go to the control panel, select “Clock, language and region”, and then “Change interface language”, you will not find the section where the language is changed.

IN Windows help it says the following:

Note

The interface language section will be available if the LIP package is already installed or if this Windows edition supports MUI. MUI packages are only available for Windows versions 7 Ultimate and Windows 7 Enterprise.

It was on this rake that I stumbled, because I did not know that the ability to change the language for Windows 7 Professional, with which I bought the laptop, was not provided.

What to do? The laptop cannot be exchanged; there is no money for another laptop. Remove the existing operating system and install the one downloaded from Internet Windows 7 Ultimate and slip her the left key, and then also break into the protection of the small soft ones so that the activation would work, I didn’t really want to either.

As usual, in such situations, we turn to the oracle of the entire Internet, Mr. Yandex or Google, whichever you like best. Running around various forums and articles on the Internet, to my great happiness I managed to stumble upon one article on the website www.thevista.ru. We must pay tribute, well done guys, they helped us out in difficult times. Those who wish to obtain more detailed information can follow this link. And here I will provide the same information, but in an abbreviated version.

So. There are 2 methods for changing the interface language.

Option #1. Suitable for all editions except Sarter (Initial).

To change the interface language from Russian to English, you must perform the following steps:

1. Boot Windows 7 into recovery mode (Repair Your Computer) via F8 at the boot stage.
2. Open a command prompt window (Command Prompt)
3. Enter the command dism /image:D: /Set-SKUIntlDefaults:en-US

Be careful with the word SKUIntlDefaults. Don't mix up the letters. INTL, not INITL.

4. Restart your computer and load Windows 7 in normal mode.
5. Open a command prompt window (Command Prompt)
6. Enter the command bcdedit /set (current) locale en-US
7. Enter the command bcdedit /set (bootmgr) locale en-US
8. Reboot

English language, as you may have noticed, I did not install it, since it was already installed earlier. The fact is that when the operating system was preinstalled on the laptop, English was the base language and an additional language was installed along with it - Russian. You can check this by going to the control panel, selecting "Clock, language and region", then "Install or remove display languages" and select "Remove display languages". In the resulting list you will see English and Russian.

In this cunning way, we changed the interface language and remained with legal activation.

Option #2. Suitable for all editions of Windows 7.

1. Install the Vistalizator program