Customize Your Computer Desktop with Windows XP

Is your computer for the whole family to use or is it personally your own? Customizing your desktop can make your perosnal computer more unique and it can be done to the way you want it. It is nice to customize the desktop because it gets you away from the default settings that everybody starts out with when using Windows XP. There is a big plus to customizing your desktop or just going through the steps but not doing it. By going through the steps you will learn many different ways that your computer can be fixed if a problem occurrs.

CUSTOMIZING MY COMPUTER, MY NETWORK PLACES, MY DOCUMENTS, AND FULL AND EMPTY RECYCLING BIN ICONS

If you want to customize the icons for My Computer, My Network Places, My Documents, and the Full and Empty Recycling Bin is quite easy if you follow the steps. Just remember that all the default icons that your computer comes with are located at the following file location: C:\WINDOWS\System32\shell32.dll. So you want to change the default icons to make your computer fit your style or be unique from the default look. A good website to download icons for your use, and it is free, is www.freeiconsdownload.com. They offer many different styles for XP and Vista.

You might want to make a folder in My Documents that is titled "Icons". Plaee the downloaded icons in this folder, because it will be easier to find them when you need them in the later steps. Here are the steps for changing the icons for the file folders that are listed. Follow the steps and do not skip any or will will lose you place and could mess something up on your computer. So if you have the slightest thought that you have skipped a step, exit out of everything you have opened and start over.

STEPS:

On the desktop, away from the icons, on your computer press the right button on your mouse. A list of options will pop up. The second step is to click your left mouse button on the on Properties, from the list. This will bring up Display Properties, which can also be gotten to by going to the Control Panel and clicking the icon title Display.

Now that Display Properties is open you will need to left click the tab at the top that is titled "Desktop". This is also where you can change your background from a list of desktop backgrounds that comes with your computer. Once you have clicked the "Desktop" tab, you should see a button that is titled "Customize Desktop...". You want to left click that button.

After you have clicked that button a new window will pop up, "Desktop Items". This is where you choose which icons that you want to change. In the middle of this window you will see the icons for which you can change. Left click the icon that you want to change and then you need to left click the button in the middle of that window that is titled, "Change Icon".

Once you have left clicked that button the "Change Icon" window will open. You will need to left click the button labled "Browse..." on the top right of the window. This will open a window where you can search all the files on your computer for icon files to use. You want to left click the button the left that is titled "My Documents", because that is where you places your downloaded icons in the file "Icons".

Click on the file titled "Icons" in the list of files that you see and then choose any one of the icons you have downloaded. Click the "Open" button on the bottom right once you have selected the icon you want to use. Now all you have to do it click the "Ok" button on all the windows that have been opened and the proccess is done.

If you are wanting to change more than one icon at a time, do not click the "OK" button on the "Desktop Items" window and do the same steps from that point to change the other icons that you want to.

CUSTOMIZING THE DESKTOP WALLPAPER

This is some that is very easy to do. There are two ways of doing this. If you want to use the default desktop wallpapers that your computer comes with, just open the "Display Properties" window that you learned how to do earlier. If you do not remember, right click on the desktop and then left click the option "Properties". Click on the "Desktop" tab at the top and then you choose and click the "OK" button.

If you want to use a picture of you own that you have saved from the internet it is very easy to do. Wherever you have saved that file to, "My Pictures", on the Start Menu, os the best place or the desktop. Right click on the picture file and a list of options will pop up. Left click the option that says "Set As Desktop Background". It is that simple to do.