And May All Your Monitors Be Bright

By Wayne Maruna

            During this Christmas season, we look forward to time with friends and family and enjoying special holiday treats.  Why not add some Eye Candy to that smorgasbord?

             Windows 8 through 10 is, if nothing else, colorful.  The Start Menu tiles convey the installed application choices in an array of vivid tiles of varying sizes, some with rotating photos and text.  Being an old-time Windows user, I prefer to spend my time on the traditional Desktop.  I am generally not a person who goes crazy with fancy ‘wallpaper’ or scrolling photo screen savers.  I prefer a simple background that makes it easy to quickly find my desktop icons, and I set my screen saver to ‘Blank’. But I have succumbed to the allure of the gorgeous photos that Microsoft makes freely available for users of Windows 7 and above.  If you’re running Windows 10 and are still staring at a lonely daisy against a blue background, you are missing a visual treat.

             From the traditional Windows desktop, right click on any open part of the screen and you will be presented with a context menu.  At the bottom of that menu is the option to Personalize. Left click that and you’ll be presented with the limited choice of desktop themes that come standard with Windows.  If you’ve been watching reruns of “A Christmas Story”, you may associate a theme with a writing assignment, like the one Ralphie’s class was made to write after Flick got his tongue stuck to the metal pole.  But no, in this case, a theme refers to a combination of desktop background pictures, window colors, and sounds. To the right of the few standard issue theme options will be the words “Get more themes online”. That, my friends, is the key to the treasure trove, because Microsoft has themes in spades.

             When you click on ‘Get more themes online’ you’ll be taken to a web site that has themes grouped into eighteen categories, including Newest, Most Popular, Animals, Automotive, Movies, Natural Wonders, Holidays and Seasons, and my personal favorite, Places and Landscapes.  I’m not sure how many overall themes there are, since several appear in more than one category, but I’m guessing there are over 500.  And since this is a bona fide Microsoft website, you don’t have to worry about embedded malware as is the case on many free wallpaper sites.

2 Images from the Snowy Nights Theme

Each theme contains multiple desktop backgrounds, typically between four and twenty. Even if you are not a fan of busy desktop backgrounds, you should pay a visit just to appreciate the marvelous photography and artwork. At the website, you have the option to click on ‘Details’ where you can peruse the backgrounds in the collection, or you can choose to download the theme to your PC for later installation, or immediately install the theme.  I would recommend reviewing the contents of a theme before downloading to make sure the backgrounds are not so busy as to camouflage your program icons. I ran into that situation with a forest theme that was visually awesome, but I simply could not pick out my desktop icons from the limbs, leaves, and flowers. Once the theme is installed, you do have the option to skip individual pictures from the rotating slide show.

Castles of Europe Image

There are spectacular views of the castles of Europe, cherry blossoms in Japan, rivers and lakes  in Canada, Egyptian pyramids, Australian landscapes, even panoramic beach scenes designed to span multiple monitors for those with the room and the budget for twin monitor setups – you can tour the world with Windows themes. If you’re a fan of animal life, you’ll find lots to choose from, be it birds, bees, bunnies, butterflies – in fact, animal life spanning the alphabet, not just your typical cutesy puppies and kitties. Truly there is something for everyone.

             Brighten your day with a little eye candy this holiday season and throughout the year. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a malware free New Year.