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Personalisation in Windows 10: A How-to Guide

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User experience is often elevated by the use of third-party software. These software can give you anything from stats monitoring to productivity boosts. In this article, we bring you the top five windows software/apps every user should have. Note that some power users might already be aware of them. The programs on this list are pretty common. Rainmeter Rainmeter is a program used to create perplexing windows desktops. Below is my own desktop, modelled after a Bumblebee theme. My desktop, modelled using Rainmeter Using Rainmeter can take your Windows Desktop to a whole new level. There are already hundreds of amazing skins available to download for a variety of resolutions. You can just download them and get started. The program provides both utility and productivity. Most Rainmeter skins include stat monitors, custom program launchers, notes, weather updates and so on. Not only this makes your desktop look infinitely cooler, but it also provides for a good, well-organised desktop. The software is open-source and so are the skins. Anyone can create, modify and reuse the skins to their heart's content. You can get Rainmeter here Also read: How does Windows 'Disk Cleanup' work? 10 things it does f.lux f.lux is cross-platform software which changes your screen's colour temperature according to the time. During the daytime, computer screens look fine. They're designed to look like the sun. But at night, when you're busy blasting away at your desktop, it's probably not a good idea to stare at a screen like that. f.lux fixes this. Much like the night mode on many smartphones, f.lux controls the blue tint of computer screens according to the time of the day. Making it warmer as the night passes by. This can save your eyes some serious strain. You can get f.lux here AVG PC TuneUp AVG PC TuneUp (previously TuneUp Utilities) is a software suite with a bunch of extremely useful utilities up its sleeve. It is an all in one management suite for your PC. You can manage your storage, diagnose hardware issues, fix registry issues, fix broken/missing drivers, update firmware/drivers and what not. The app also has anti-malware systems built in. The Game Mode in the app temporarily boosts your computer's performance so that you can get better performance in your games. As aforementioned, the app also has a bunch of excellent memory management apps. This is truly the one app you need for all your OS management. You can get AVG PC TuneUp here CPU-Z CPU-Z is also another very useful hardware monitoring app. Essentially it's a freeware system profiling and monitoring software for Windows. Upon installation, it detects and shows the CPU, RAM, GPU, MotherBoard and other hardware components of a PC. It used by PC enthusiasts all over the world for monitoring basic hardware stats. It is an extremely lightweight software too. Also, it barely needs any system resources to run and hence can be used on a wide variety of systems. You can get CPU-Z here SpeedFan If your PC runs hot, this software can save your life. SpeedFan is a system monitoring app for Windows that monitors your PC's temperatures, fan RPMs and voltages of various components. Power PC users widely use to it monitor hardware temperatures and voltages especially during overclocking. The software displays system variables as charts and as an indicator in the system tray as well. Depending upon your fan's hardware, SpeedFan also lets you set fan speeds for various components. You can get SpeedFan here Also read: How to manage app permissions on Windows 10?

Windows 10 offers an extensive list of features when it comes to personalisation. This edition of Windows offered by Microsoft is a complete overhaul from the previous ones. It comes with a completely redesigned user interface with much better themes and colour options.

These personalisation features include customising the taskbar and the start menu too. You can choose what appears on the lock screen, and also colour calibrate your monitor.

Windows has rolled out updates regularly to make things better and offer more features to the community. The Windows Personalisation features are enough to make your boring OS and user interface to look much better than most.

In this article, we will see where to find these features and also dive deep into every one of those.

Also read: How to manage app permissions on Windows 10?

Where to find the Windows Personalization features?

Click on the Windows key on your keyboard or select the start menu and look for the Settings icon in the bottom left corner and open it.

How to personalise Windows 10 to your taste and style? 7 cool featuresSearch for the Personalization tab and click on it.

How to personalise Windows 10 to your taste and style? 7 cool featuresYou will be presented with various personalisation options on the left side of your screen.

How to personalise Windows 10 to your taste and style? 7 cool featuresAlso read: Top 5 Windows Software/Apps for power users to boost productivity and experience

7 customisable Windows features

Background

How to personalise Windows 10 to your taste and style? 7 cool featuresThis section does not have much to offer. It gives you options to change the desktop background to a picture of your choice, a solid colour, or a slideshow from the images you choose. It gives you different crop options to choose from for your wallpaper.

Colours

How to personalise Windows 10 to your taste and style? 7 cool featuresColours is an interesting addition to make your user interface look colourful and moreover, the palette has a lot of options to choose. You can also use the entire colour wheel if you want a particular colour.

You can also choose from a light and a dark mode for all your Windows apps. The light mode will keep a white background theme, and the dark mode will host a black background theme. You can also toggle on transparency effects for your taskbar and more.

Lock screen

How to personalise Windows 10 to your taste and style? 7 cool featuresLock screen was introduced with Windows 8, and it has undoubtedly come a long way since then. The Windows 10 lock screen is very minimalistic but at the same time has several features and can show a lot of information at a single glance. It also has support to use Cortana while on the lock screen.

You can use this menu to change your lock screen wallpaper and even choose to keep a slideshow. You can select a single app to show detailed status and seven apps to show quick status.

Themes

How to personalise Windows 10 to your taste and style? 7 cool featuresThemes is another interesting feature in Personalisation of Windows. You can choose your background, accent colour, default sounds, and your mouse cursor. There are various presets available from Windows.

Fonts

How to personalise Windows 10 to your taste and style? 7 cool featuresThe Fonts menu lets you go through all the different fonts that are readily available on your PC. These do not apply system-wide and are only used to edit or delete/uninstall a specific font. You can also download more fonts from the Windows store and install them respectively.

When you click on any font, it provides you with the details of the font such as full name, file location, version, designed language, the designer company, the manufacturer and the copyright information.

Start

How to personalise Windows 10 to your taste and style? 7 cool featuresThis menu offers all possible customisation options for the Start menu. It shows the most recently added apps, most used apps and also has the option to add more tiles to your Start menu, and much more.

Taskbar

How to personalise Windows 10 to your taste and style? 7 cool featuresThis one is all about your taskbar. Windows 10 comes with excellent repositioning features for your taskbar, and you can also choose to hide or unhide your taskbar. You can control the taskbar even while using multiple displays.

The taskbar has a unique feature called ‘My People’ where you can always stay connected to the people you frequently contact, from the taskbar. You can choose up to 10 people to remain always connected. There are various notification settings available regarding My People.

Also read: How to access Windows 10 Sticky Notes online or on Android

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Rajiv Kulkarni

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