Personalization in Windows - customizing the design of the operating system to suit your individual (personal) tastes and needs. In accordance with their preferences, the user changes the theme, color, desktop background, sounds, screensaver, font size, avatar, etc. on his computer.
The combination of images, colors, sounds, screensavers is called a theme. There are already ready-to-use themes on your computer, you can create and customize a theme as you like.
In this article, we will get acquainted with the personalization settings in Windows 10, you will find out where you can download official Microsoft themes and wallpapers (backgrounds) for your desktop, how to install or remove a theme from your computer, where the themes are stored on your computer, how to extract the desired image from the theme.
Personalization settings can be accessed from the Start menu. Select Options and then Personalization. It is even easier to enter the settings as follows: right-click on the free area of \u200b\u200bthe monitor screen, and in the context menu, select "Personalization".
Personalization in Windows 10
In the "Personalization" window, in the "Background" tab, select an image for the desktop background. The following options are available for displaying the background:
- Photo - a separate image serves as the background
- Solid color - the selected color will be used as the background
- Slideshow - background images will change at regular intervals
When choosing one of the options, you will need to make settings: select a photo, select a background color, select albums for a slideshow. In each case, select the desired settings. Here you can select the position of the background: "fill", "fit", "stretch", "tile", "center", "expand".
In the "Colors" tab, select the main color for the Windows appearance. In the settings, you can enable automatic selection of the main background color, change the color display options in the Start menu, on the taskbar and in the Notification Center.
In the "Lock screen" tab, you can configure the background that will be displayed on the monitor screen when the computer is locked. Here you can choose from three options for displaying the background of the lock screen: "Windows: Highlights", "Photos", "Slideshow".
From the Themes tab, you go to the theme options, and the related options: Advanced sound options, Desktop icon options, Mouse pointer options.
We will discuss the theme parameters in detail later. If necessary, adjust the sound settings, mouse pointer settings. Enter the Desktop Icon Options.
In the Desktop Icon Settings window, select the icons that you want to display on the Desktop, and then click OK. To remove an icon from the Desktop, uncheck the box next to the corresponding icon, and then click on the "OK" button.
In the "Start" tab you can configure the settings of the "Start" menu. The user chooses the settings according to his preferences: the number of tiles displayed, showing recommendations, the order in which applications are displayed, etc.
Saving a theme on Windows
Open the Themes tab click on Theme Options. This will open the "Personalization" window. Here you will see the default themes and the themes you added. Windows 10 has three default themes: Windows, Windows 10, Flowers. To activate a theme on your computer, click on the corresponding theme.
If the theme is named "Unsaved Theme", click on the "Save Theme" link to save and name the theme.
How to download themes
Users find themes and wallpapers for the Desktop on the Internet, many do not even suspect that you can download Microsoft themes and wallpapers from the official website of the corporation. Official themes and wallpapers can be found on the Personalization Gallery page. In the personalization gallery, you will find themes, desktop backgrounds, language packs.
The site has a large selection of topics. Topics are collected in selections: "Animals", "Art (drawings)", "Art (photographs)", "Cars", "Games", "Holidays and seasons", "Films", "Natural wonders", "Locations and landscapes "," Plants and flowers "," Branded themes "," From the community "," Panoramic (for two monitors) "," With custom sounds "," Windows 7 compatible "," New Windows compatible ".
You can download and install any theme from this collection on your computer. Windows 7 users can download and install many of the themes from the Microsoft Gallery on their computer that support the operating system.
Enter the corresponding collection, select a topic, click on the link "More". Here you will see detailed information about the topic: the number of images in this topic, the color of the window, an example of an image on the computer screen. View all the images included in the theme, if the theme suits you, download the theme to your computer.
How to delete a theme on Windows
If you no longer need this theme, you can delete the theme from your computer. The topic to be deleted must not be active at the time of deletion. Move the mouse cursor over the topic, right-click on the topic, and then click on "Delete topic".
How to download wallpaper
In the Personalization Gallery window, go to the Desktop Backgrounds tab. Wallpapers (backgrounds) are combined into collections of images: "Animals", "Art (drawings)", "Art (photos)", "Cars", "Games", "Holidays and seasons", "Natural wonders", "Locations and landscapes ”,“ Plants and flowers ”,“ Branded wallpapers ”,“ From the community ”,“ Panoramas ”,“ All wallpapers ”.
After clicking on the picture, the image will be expanded. You can save the image you like to your computer to use as a desktop background.
Any image can be used on a computer as a desktop wallpaper. To do this, right-click on the image, and in the context menu, select "Set as desktop background".
Where are Windows 10 themes stored?
The default themes are stored in the "Web" folder on your computer. In order to get to this folder, follow the following path (this place stores the standard desktop wallpaper for Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7):
C: \\ Windows \\ Web
In the "Web" folder, you will find three folders: "4K", "Screen", "Wallpaper". The 4K folder contains the official Windows 10 screensaver in various resolutions. The Screen folder contains images used for the lock screen saver. The folder "Wallpaper" contains folders with three official themes, which store the images that are part of these themes.
If you like a particular image from the theme and want to use that image as your desktop background, you can copy the image to another location and then make that image your desktop background.
Themes downloaded to your computer are stored in a different location. There are two ways to extract a single image from such a theme.
First way. Unpack a theme downloaded but not yet installed on your computer using an archiver such as WinRAR or 7-Zip. In the folder you will find all the images included in the theme.
Second way. The images that are part of a theme already installed on your computer can be found in a folder named after the theme, which is located in the following path:
C: \\ Users \\ username \\ AppData \\ Local \\ Microsoft \\ Windows \\ Themes \\
Where are the lock screen wallpapers stored
You can find standard lock screen background images in the Screen folder. If Windows Highlights is selected in the lock screen background settings, Windows 10 downloads images from the Internet to your computer. These images can be used not only as a lock screen saver, but also as a desktop background.
Downloaded images that are used as the background of the lock screen are located along this path:
C: \\ Users \\ username \\ AppData \\ Local \\ Packages \\ Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy \\ LocalState \\ Assets
The Assets folder contains files downloaded to your computer. Copy the file from this folder to a convenient location on your computer. Next, rename the file, give the file some name with the extension ".jpg", for example, "picture.jpg".
After that, you can use this image as your Desktop background.
Conclusions of the article
The user can customize the design of the Windows 10 operating system to suit their individual needs. These settings are called personalization. From the official site you can download and install Microsoft themes and wallpapers on your computer. You can use any image included in the theme as wallpaper.
Personalizing Windows 10 How to Download Microsoft Themes and Wallpapers (Video)
Setting the wallpaper for the desktop is a fairly simple topic, almost everyone knows how to set or change the wallpaper on the Windows 10 desktop. All this, although it has changed in comparison with previous versions of the operating system, but not enough to cause significant difficulties.
But some other nuances may not be so obvious, for example, how to change the wallpaper of Windows 10 that is not activated, set up an auto-change wallpaper, why the quality of photos on the desktop is lost, where the default wallpapers are stored, and whether it is possible to install animated wallpapers on the desktop. wallpaper.
How to set (change) the Windows 10 desktop wallpaper
The first is how to set your own image or picture to your desktop. To do this, in Windows 10, you just need to right-click on an empty place on the desktop, and then select "Personalization".
In the "Background" tab of the personalization settings, select "Photo", and then - a photo from the available list, or by clicking on the "Browse" button, set your own image as the desktop wallpaper.
In addition to other settings, there are options for wallpaper in the "Stretch", "Expansion", "Fill", "Tile", "Fit" and "Center" tabs. If the photo does not match the aspect ratio of the screen or the resolution, then you can adjust the wallpaper to a more acceptable form using the above options, but it is better to find a wallpaper that matches the screen resolution.
Here, the first problem may arise: if something is wrong with the activation of Windows 10, the message "You need to activate Windows to personalize your computer" appears in the personalization settings.
But in this case, it is possible to change the wallpaper on the desktop:
1. Select any image on your PC, right-click on it and select "Set as desktop background".
2. There is a similar function in Internet Explorer: if you open an image in this browser and right-click on it, you can use it as a background image.
So even if the system is not activated, you can still change the desktop wallpaper.
Automatic wallpaper change
Windows 10 has support for slideshows on the desktop, that is, the automatic change of wallpapers from the ones selected by the user. To use this opportunity, in the personalization parameters, in the "Background" tab, select "Slide Show".
After that, you can set the following parameters:
- A folder that contains the desktop wallpaper that can be used.
- The interval for automatically changing the wallpaper.
- The order and type of arrangement on the desktop.
Where is the Windows 10 desktop wallpaper
One of the frequently asked questions regarding the functionality of desktop images in Windows 10 is the location of the standard wallpaper folder on a PC. The answer is not very clear, but for some it may be useful.
1. Some standard wallpapers, including those used for the lock screen, can be found in the C: \\ Windows \\ Web \\ folder, in the Wallpaper and Screen subfolders.
2. The TranscodedWallpaper file, which is the current desktop wallpaper, is located in the C: \\ Users \\ username \\ AppData \\ Roaming \\ Microsoft \\ Windows \\ Themes folder. The file has no extension, however, in fact, it is a simple jpeg, i.e. you can independently substitute the extension .jpg to the name of this file and open it with any program.
3. If you go to the registry editor of Windows 10, then in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER \\ SOFTWARE \\ Microsoft \\ Internet Explorer \\ Desktop \\ General you can see the WallpaperSource parameter, which indicates the path to the current desktop wallpaper.
4. Wallpapers from the themes are located in the C: \\ Users \\ username \\ AppData \\ Local \\ Microsoft \\ Windows \\ Themes
Wallpaper quality on your desktop
One of the common complaints from PC users is the poor quality of the wallpaper. The reasons for this may be:
- Not matching the resolution of the wallpaper and the screen. Those. if the monitor resolution is 1920 × 1080, then you need to use the wallpaper of the same resolution, without using the options in the settings of the wallpaper parameters "Stretch", "Fill", "Extend", "Fit".
- Windows 10 will recode wallpapers that were in good quality, compressing them to Jpeg in its own way, which leads to a decrease in quality.
So that the wallpaper does not lose quality when installed in Windows 10 (or does not significantly lose), you can change one of the registry settings that determines the jpeg compression settings.
1. Go to the registry editor (Win + R, enter regedit) and go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER \\ Control Panel \\ Desktop section
2. Right-click on the right side of the registry editor and create a new DWORD parameter named JPEGImportQuality
3. Double-click on the newly created parameter and set it to a value from 60 to 100, where 100 is the maximum image quality (without compression).
Close the registry editor, restart the computer or restart the explorer and reinstall the wallpaper on the desktop to display in good quality.
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On the Windows 10 lockscreen, really cool pictures periodically appear. How can I keep them for myself (for example, to tile my desktop)? This cannot be done directly, but there is still one way.
Windows 10 stores these images (and more) right on your computer as files with a non-standard extension. Our task is to find a storage location for the screensavers, copy them to a more convenient location and assign the files the "correct" extension. Let's get started!
1. Make sure Windows 10 displays hidden files and folders on your computer. To check this, open Explorer and click on the View tab. There must be a check mark next to the Hidden items item.
2. Through Search, go to% userprofile% \\ AppData \\ Local \\ Packages \\ Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy \\ LocalState \\ Assets
You will be taken to the Assets folder with a large number of files.
3. Copy all files to a separate folder and place it in a convenient place for you - for example, on your desktop.
4. In the new folder, click File - Open Command Prompt - Open Command Prompt as Administrator. 
5. Enter the following command: ren *. * * .Jpg 
6. Return to the folder. Now, mixed with "garbage" there are Windows 10 splash screensavers. Separating the wheat from the chaff is easy - just sort the files by size. The largest ones will appear at the top. We need them, everything else can be safely deleted.
Have you been using a new operating system for a long time, but still have no idea where are the pictures used for the lock screen in Windows 10? Today we will touch on this issue and several related ones, for example, how to pull off the desired picture for yourself.
During their work in the top ten, users noticed that the operating system periodically changes the screen saver of the lock screen. Sometimes there are very beautiful pictures that you want to use as your desktop background.
Only for this you need to find out where these images are stored. Advanced users even tried to find all the graphic files stored in the directories of the system volume, but in vain, the necessary images were never found. Why it so happened that the search did not find the necessary files, we will consider below.
It happens that the display of pictures is deactivated in the settings (especially for fans of assemblies aimed at the maximum performance of Windows 10). You can enable them, select the displayed photo, play pictures in the form of a slideshow, and even change the catalog with the required photos as follows.
- Open the "Options" menu using the Win + I keyboard shortcut.
- Go to the personalization section.
- We make the "Lock Screen" tab active.
- As the first option "Background" set "Windows: Interesting".
You can check if everything looks as it was intended with the Win + L keyboard shortcut, which will bring up the lock screen.
After selecting "Photo", you will be able to replace the background from the lock screen in Windows 10, and the "Slideshow" option will allow you to specify several pictures or directories with graphic files that will be used as slides.
Save the graphic file from the lock screen to your collection
Any image that is suggested to be set as the background of the lock screen is stored in the user directory along the path - C: \\ Users \\ Your_User_Name \\ AppData
\\ Local \\ Packages \\ Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy \\ LocalState \\... Find the "Assets" folder here and open it.
One nuance! It may not be possible to see the AppData directory just like that, since it is a system one, and therefore has the "Hidden" attribute. By default, such objects of the file system are not displayed in the standard explorer window, but it is not at all difficult to fix it with literally a single mouse click.
1. Open the explorer window Win + E or through a shortcut.
2. Call the main menu item called "View".
3. Check the box "Hidden items".
The same is done through the "Folder options".
1. Call the item "Change folder and search parameters."
2. In the "View" tab, move the switch next to the last option to the "Show hidden files and folders" position.
After that, you can open the "Assets" folder, where the lock screen pictures in Windows 10 are located.
You can't just look at a single picture, unless you open the image viewer and drag a file with a long name, which is a set of characters, into its window.
All these files are images, but without an extension, and to view them, add its extension - jpg to the end of the file. The absence of these symbols is the reason why Windows 10's search engine was unable to find graphics files used as wallpapers for the lock screen.
If one photo is renamed quickly, then manually changing the names of several dozen documents takes a long time. Let's consider how to change the file extension in batches.
1. Copy all images to a directory that will be located in a directory different from the system folder.
2. Rename all files to any name you like, and set the images to ".jpg" format.
Now you can switch the way of visualization of directory elements to "Large icons" or "Sketches" and select the necessary pictures or delete unnecessary ones.
Customizing your desktop wallpaper is a pretty simple theme, almost everyone knows how to put wallpaper on your Windows 10 desktop or change it. All this, although it has changed compared to previous versions of the OS, but not in a way that could cause significant difficulties.
But some other nuances may not be obvious, especially for novice users, for example: how to change the wallpaper on an unactivated Windows 10, set up automatic wallpaper change, why do desktop photos lose quality, where they are stored by default, and is it possible to make animated wallpapers on Desktop. All this is the subject of this article.
How to set (change) the Windows 10 desktop wallpaper
The first and the simplest is how to set your own picture or image on your desktop. To do this, in Windows 10, just right-click on an empty space on the desktop and select the "Personalization" menu item.
In the "Background" section of the personalization settings, select "Photo" (if the choice is not available, since the system is not activated, information on how to bypass this is further), and then - a photo from the proposed list, or by clicking on the "Browse" button set your own image as your desktop wallpaper (which can be stored in any folder on your computer).
Among other settings, the location options "Expand", "Stretch", "Fill", "Fit", "Tile" and "Center" are available for the wallpaper. If the photo does not match the resolution or aspect ratio of the screen, you can make the wallpaper look more pleasant using the above options, but I recommend just finding a wallpaper that matches your screen resolution.
The first problem may also await you right there: if Windows 10 activation is not all right, you will see a message in the personalization settings that "To personalize your computer, you need to activate Windows."
However, in this case, you have the option to change the desktop wallpaper:
So even if your system is not activated, you can still change your desktop wallpaper.
Automatic wallpaper change
Windows 10 supports desktop slideshows, i.e. automatic change of wallpapers among those chosen by you. To use this feature, in the personalization options, in the "Background" field, select "Slide Show".
After that, you can set the following parameters:
- The folder containing the desktop wallpaper that should be used (when selecting, it is the folder that is selected, that is, after clicking "Browse" and entering the folder with images, you will see that it is "Empty", this is the normal operation of this function in Windows 10, the contained wallpaper will still show on the desktop).
- The interval for automatically changing the wallpaper (they can also be changed to the following ones in the right-click menu on the desktop).
- The order and type of arrangement on the desktop.
Nothing complicated and for some of the users who are bored all the time contemplating the same picture, the function can be useful.
Where are Windows 10 desktop wallpapers stored
One of the frequently asked questions regarding the functionality of desktop images in Windows 10 is where is the standard wallpaper folder on the computer. The answer is not entirely clear, but it may be useful for those interested.
These are all the main locations where Windows 10 wallpapers are stored, except for those folders on your computer where you store them yourself.
Wallpaper quality on your desktop
One of the frequent complaints from users is the poor quality of the wallpaper on the desktop. The reasons for this may be the following:
- Wallpaper resolution does not match your screen resolution. Those. if your monitor has a resolution of 1920 × 1080, you should use a wallpaper in the same resolution, without using the "Expand", "Stretch", "Fill", "Fit" options in the wallpaper settings. The best option is "Center" (or "Tile" for a mosaic).
- Windows 10 re-encodes wallpapers that were in excellent quality by compressing them to Jpeg in its own way, resulting in poorer quality. This can be bypassed, see below for how to do it.
To ensure that when setting wallpaper in Windows 10, they do not lose quality (or lose not so much), you can change one of the registry settings, which determines the jpeg compression settings.
- Go to the registry editor (Win + R, enter regedit) and go to the section HKEY_CURRENT_USER \\ Control Panel \\ Desktop
- Right-click on the right side of the Registry Editor to create a new DWORD value named JPEGImportQuality
- Double click on the newly created parameter and set it to a value from 60 to 100, where 100 is the maximum image quality (without compression).
Close the registry editor, restart your computer, or restart Explorer and reinstall your desktop wallpaper to display it in good quality.
The second option to use high quality wallpaper on your desktop is to replace the file TranscodedWallpaper in C: \\ Users \\ username \\ AppData \\ Roaming \\ Microsoft \\ Windows \\ Themes your original file.
Animated wallpaper in Windows 10
The question about how to make live animated wallpapers in Windows 10, put video as the desktop background is one of the most frequently asked questions from users. In the OS itself, there are no built-in functions for these purposes, and the only solution is to use third-party software.
From what can be recommended and what exactly works is the DeskScapes program, which, however, is paid. Moreover, the functionality is not limited only to animated wallpapers. You can download DeskScapes from the official website http://www.stardock.com/products/deskscapes/
This concludes: I hope you found here something that you did not know about the desktop wallpaper and that turned out to be useful.
