Top 20 Vista tips Change Vista's appearance
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This article, Top 20 Vista tips, was last updated on 20 January 2009 and is now out of date and held in our online archive for reference. Explore our latest Technology articles.
Change your desktop
To change the appearance of Vista right click on your computer desktop and click Personalize.
Click Desktop then Browse and browse to the picture you want to set as your desktop image, double click on the picture.
Now select how the picture should appear, then click OK.
Magnify Windows
To make it easier to use Windows click Start > Control Panel > Personalization.
Click Ease of Access on the left hand side of the resulting window.
From here you can launch a Magnifier tool.
This will magnify the area of the screen that your cursor is pointing at and display it in a window at the top of the screen.
Adjust mouse settings
To change the appearance of your mouse click Start > Control Panel > Personalization.
Click Ease of Access on the left hand side of the resulting window.
Click the blue link that says Make mouse easier to use.
Tick to select how you'd like your cursor to appear onscreen 'Extra large black', for example.
Customise the Taskbar
The taskbar is the greyed out area at the bottom of your screen where you'll see notifications about programs that need updating as well as information about your network status or your battery life (if you're using a laptop).
To customize the taskbar click Start > Control Panel > Taskbar and Start menu.
From here you can change the appearance of the taskbar by choosing to hide or unhide it, keep the taskbar on top of other windows and whether you want to group similar buttons together.
Customise the Start Bar
To customize the Vista Start bar, click Start > Control Panel > Taskbar and Start menu.
Click on the Start Menu tab. From here you can choose to revert to the Classic view of Windows or use the new-look Vista Start menu.
Click Customize to further change the appearance of the Start menu.
Alter how pictures look in Vista
You can change the colour and appearance of windows within Vista.
To do this, click Start > Control Panel > Personalization.
Here you can choose whether to make windows transparent or to change the colour of windows.
We've chosen to make ours red in the screenshot here.
Microsoft released a Beta version of Windows 7, the operating system that will replace Windows Vista, in January 2009, though it isn't expected to be rolled out until late 2009. Read the Which? first look review of Windows 7 here.
