Easy-to-Install Windows Trim Can Add a Homey Touch to Your Desktop

Windows 95 is like a new home or office: pretty sterile when you first move in. While there is no documented evidence that a personalized Windows 95 desktop is a more productive desktop, it’s fun to set up and use. And since you see it a lot, why not make it your own?

For starters, rename the My Computer icon on the desktop something a little more personal. (My secretary named hers “The Tormentor.”) Right-click on the My Computer icon and from the pop-up menu, select Rename. Type a new name, press Enter and that’s it.

Next, right-click anywhere on the Windows 95 desktop and from the pop-up menu select Properties. This is where you can really put the “personal” in your personal computer. Your first stop is the Background tab, where you can change the desktop’s wallpaper without getting paste on your hands.

Point and click on the different patterns and wallpapers. Play around. You can’t hurt anything. Watch the sample window as you click different options to get a sneak peek at your desktop’s new appearance.

Instead of using Windows’ canned wallpapers, use your favorite graphic or image file. The catch is, the graphic must be a bitmapped image. Bitmaps are made up of dots. Imagine taking a felt-tipped pen and drawing a face dot by dot. Any drawing program--you got one free with Windows 95 called Paint, located in the Accessories folder--allows you to create and save a file as a bitmap file with a BMP file extension.

To use a BMP file as desktop wallpaper, click the Browse button and then select the folder where you think the file may be. When you find the BMP file, click on it to select it.

Before you click Apply to save your new desktop wallpaper, select the Screen Saver tab (a screen saver is a program that starts when you haven’t used your PC for a certain amount of time). Click on the down arrow at the end of the Screen Saver field and pick the screen saver you want from the list.

Check out the Settings button. If it’s not grayed out, set other options as desired (usually you can set blank time, colors, patterns, speed, number of wiggle things and so on). Click Preview to see whether you like the new screen saver.

When you are done setting up a screen saver, click the Appearance tab. If you’re like me and have trouble not clashing colors, the Windows pre-made color schemes are like a high-tech interior designer inside the computer. Click the down-arrow underneath Scheme to see the list of options.

Pick the color scheme you like. If you picked a custom desktop wallpaper earlier, though, it’s probably not part of the Windows canned color scheme. Just click the Background tab and pick the one you want again.

There’s a lot more you can do at the Appearance tab. You can change the colors, font and size of almost any item on your desktop. For example, to make desktop icons bigger, click the down arrow underneath Item. Browse the list to find Icon and select it. You change the icon’s size by increasing or decreasing the number in the Size box. You can also pick a different font and change the size and color of the text.

The Windows color schemes aren’t for everyone. If you just can’t find one you like or are simply feeling creative, make your own. Start by selecting the Windows standard Scheme. Notice that the sample window contains the elements of a Windows desktop: the desktop itself, active window, inactive windows, title bars, borders and more. From here you can point and click on various items in the sample window to change an item’s color and attribute.

For example, click on the desktop in the sample window. Look in the Item box--It should say Desktop. The current color of the desktop is shown in the Colors box. Click the Colors box’s down arrow to see a window that’s full of different colors.

Here’s where the fun starts. Click any colored square to change the desktop’s color. Then go back to the sample window and pick the next screen element you want to change--the title bars, a button’s face, text or highlights. Keep clicking the sample element and picking a new color.

Now is a good time to experiment with the Custom Color option, which enables you to create colors not on the palette. After you click the Colors box, select the button marked Other. To get a shade of gray, click the color in the spectrum. On the right side of the color spectrum is a scroll bar. Slide the arrow up or down to increase or decrease color intensity. Then click Add to Custom Colors, and the color appears in a box in the Custom Colors area. You can then use this color and assign it to an element in the sample window.

After you finish creating a new color scheme, click Save Scheme and type a name for it. Click Apply, and you’ve got your new colors saved--and you have a desktop that’s more like home.