Vista Tips : Costumizing the Dekstop
The desktop is a pretty simple part of Windows. Normally, you can’t do much to customize its looks besides changing the wallpaper. However, several different tools are available that you can use to add features to the desktop and take advantage of some of the lesser-known features.
The next few sections will show you how you can use these tools to do cool things such as animate your desktop and add cool gadgets with Windows Sidebar.
Animating your desktop
One of the Ultimate Extras is a cool application called Windows DreamScene that allows you to use movie files as your wallpaper. Microsoft has released several subtle looped movies that make great desktop backgrounds, such as waterfall scenes and computer-generated animations.
Depending on the video file selected, your background can range from absolutely amazing to something that can make you sick because the motion is too much. Overall, this new Ultimate Extra adds a great feature for those who are running Windows Vista Ultimate Edition. Sorry to those of you who are not-you cannot run Windows DreamScene.
To get started, you will need to visit Windows Update to download the Ultimate Extra if you have not already done so.
Follow these steps to get it installed:
- Click the Start button, type Windows Update in the Search box, and then press Enter.
- On the top left of the Windows Update screen, press Check for Updates. Windows will now search online for any security updates as well as new Ultimate Extras.
- When the search is finished, click View available Extras to see what is available to download.
- Locate and check Windows DreamScene.
- Click Install.
Adding gadgets
Gadgets are what Windows Sidebar is all about. After all, without them the sidebar is just a waste of space. As I mentioned earlier, gadgets are basically miniature applications that can provide all sorts of information and functions.
First let’s go over the basics: The process of adding and removing gadgets to your sidebar is very simple. To add, you just press the big + button located at the top of the sidebar on your screen and then drag the gadget you want over to the sidebar into the location you want. To remove, press the little X button on the top-right side of the gadget that is shown when you hover over the gadget with your mouse. Feel like changing the order of gadgets around? Simply drag them into the order you want.
After you use Windows Sidebar for a little while you will definitely want to go exploring and see what other gadgets are online that you can use. There are dozens of high-quality gadgets online that will add a lot of value to your sidebar.
Now that you know the basics, let’s go online and start downloading some new gadgets:
- Various sidebar gadget sites are starting to pop up on the Web but the most popular one is Microsoft’s own located at http://www.gallery.microsoft.com. This is a very comprehensive site that has gadgets and plug-ins for various Microsoft applications including Windows Sidebar. Because the site is so large, I have a trick for you that will help you get right to the Windows Sidebar gadgets section. Click the + sign on the top of the sidebar as you normally add gadgets. Then, just click the link in the bottom right of the window that says Get More Gadgets Online. That will take you right to the correct section of the site.
- Once you are in the Microsoft Windows Sidebar gadget section, navigate through the pages until you find a gadget you would like to add to your sidebar, and then click Download.
- Click OK on the third-party warning screen on the web page and the file will begin to download. Click Open on the file download screen.
- When the gadget is downloaded, press Allow on the Internet Explorer Security screen and then press Install on the Windows Sidebar-Security Warning screen. The gadget will now be installed and will automatically show up on your sidebar.
Adding a Quick Launch show sidebar button
Since I have been using Windows Vista, I have loaded my sidebar and desktop up with all types of useful gadgets. Unfortunately, quite often the sidebar gets buried behind various open windows and all my useful gadgets are gone.
Here is a quick tip that I personally always set up on my computer that will help you in this situation:
- Click the Start button, type Sidebar in the Search box, and then press Enter. This will search your Start menu for the Windows Sidebar shortcut.
- Drag the shortcut that shows up in the Start menu over to your Quick Launch bar and release. This will create a very useful button on your Quick Launch toolbar that, when clicked, will automatically bring the sidebar and any desktop gadgets you have running to the front of your screen.
- I like to drag my Sidebar shortcut next to my Show Desktop icon, as shown in Figure 2.6, so that I can easily find it when I have a ton of shortcuts on my Quick Launch bar.
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