4. Replacing the User Interface
We happen to believe that Windows 7's user interface
is a tremendous improvement over those of both its predecessors,
Windows XP and Windows Vista, and various competing operating systems
such as Mac OS X. You may not agree. If that's the case, you might
consider one of the utilities out there that enable you to replace the
standard Windows 7 UIs with new skins, some of which are quite
attractive. The best of the lot is Stardock WindowBlinds, which offers
custom UI skins with configurable color schemes (see Figure 8).
An alternate (and wildly popular) approach is to
replace several system files with modified ones to enable Windows to
use homebrew Microsoft Styles (.msstyle) files. Rafael has been
modifying the system files responsible for "theming" in Windows since
they debuted in Windows (code-named as Whistler) and upkeeps a
repository of files on his site (www.withinwindows.com/uxtheme-files).
Microsoft Styles files, unlike Theme (.theme) and
Theme Pack (.themepack) files, enable you to control how all the
various UI elements in Windows look, like the Start button, the
Taskbar's height, and even the appearance of window shadows. If you're
interested in creating your own Microsoft Style, and have a lot of time
on your hands, check out Ave's Windows 7 Style Builder (www.win7stylebuilder.com).
NOTE
You may be wondering why Microsoft would lock
down the use of custom styles. Branding and support are two reasons.
Imagine the nightmare scenario of trying to explain where the Start Orb
is located when it has been modified to appear as a sunflower instead.
5. Branding Windows 7 like a PC Maker
This one is just good old-fashioned fun: if you've
ever purchased a new PC, you've probably noticed that the PC maker has
customized the System Properties window with their logo and other
information. Well, you can customize this information yourself. There
are two ways to handle this. You can muck around in the Registry, which
is time-consuming and difficult, or you can simply use the wonderful
freeware utility called WinBubble (http://unlockforus.blogspot.com), shown in Figure 9.
Once you apply the changes, check out the System Properties window to see the havoc you've wrought (see Figure 10). Neat, eh?
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In case it's not obvious, WinBubble can also be used to remove
branding, so if you purchased a PC and want to get rid of that HP logo
in the System Properties window, this is a great way to do so.
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NOTE
WinBubble does a lot
more than just help you change the branding. In fact, this handy
utility is, we believe, the tweaking tool that's closest in spirit and
functionality to Microsoft's long-admired TweakUI. Microsoft never made
a version of TweakUI for Windows Vista or Windows 7 for some reason,
but it doesn't matter: WinBubble fills that gap quite nicely.
Unfortunately, WinBubble hasn't been updated to take
advantage of the ability to brand the logon screen, new to Windows 7.
This tweak isn't difficult to implement, however. Simply open the
Registry Editor (Start Menu Search, type regedit)
and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_
MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\
Background. Then, click Edit => New => DWORD, and name it "OEMBackground," as shown in Figure 11. Finally, double-click the newly created value name and assign it a data value of 1.
After turning on this feature, navigate to the
C:\Windows\System32\Oobe\Info\ Backgrounds folder (creating any missing
folders in the process) and drop your background image inside. There
are a few rules you must follow, however:
The image must be less than 256 kilobytes in size.
The image must be named as background<height>x<width>.jpg (e.g., background1920×1200.jpg).
NOTE
Changing your theme will unfortunately trample over your logon background.
NOTE
Due to the number of different resolutions out
there, you may have issues changing the logon background image. The
supported resolutions follow:
768×1280, 900×1440, 960×1280, 1024×768, 1024×1280, 1280×960, 1280×768, 1280×1024, 1360×768, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1920×1200
If you don't see your resolution in the preceding
list, rest assured there's a failsafe. Simply rename your image to
"backgroundDefault.jpg," and you'll be good to go. Keep in mind,
however, your image may be resized, stretched, or otherwise distorted
to fit your weird resolution.
