After the column last week I received quite a few emails asking for a few more Windows 10 tips. Keep in mind that you can email me your questions and I will always answer back. Give me time, and you may see yours appearing here one week. Keep them coming!
As funny as it may sound to you many people have asked me how to change the colors in Windows 10. They apparently do not like the default settings. It is quite easy to do and you have many options you can play with.
Go to Settings by both clicking the start menu and typing “Settings” or click on the box icon with lines in the lower right of your task bar next to the time and click “All Settings.” Once that window opens click on “Personalization.”
Now click “Colors” on the left and try it out. You can choose your own accent color. Scroll down and click on the other two settings for showing that color on the taskbar, start menu and others. I like the automatically pick the color from your background option and it works well. Of course, that gives us another setting to play with, your background.
In that same area on the left click “Background.” You can choose a slideshow which works quite well. You can choose a folder full of your favorite images (you will need to browse to where it is located) and they will display one after the other at the time interval you select. One note here… if you choose a folder on Dropbox or another online storage area it will not work very well so make sure the graphics are in a local folder on your C Drive. If you have one picture of your kids or a photograph you are proud of choose “Picture” from the dropdown. You can also choose a Solid Color which I find pretty boring.
If you choose the color to be picked automatically it will change with each new background picture when it loads. There are other settings you can play with in this area too. The only warning here is under “Start.” Be careful of the “Use Start full screen” which will make your start menu button open a start screen which fills your entire window with the start choices. You can try them one at a time and cut them off if you do not care for the changes in this area of Windows 10.
Some people are confused on how to shut down the computer and just log off or lock it. For locking the computer nothing has changed over the last few operating systems. Hold down the Windows key on your keyboard and press the letter “L” and you are locked. Sign out and locked have changed in the menu area. Click the start button, click your user name at the very top and then select either “Change account settings,” “Lock,” or “Sign out.”
Shut down is under the start menu again but go to either “Sleep,” “Shut down” or “Restart” under the “Power” link at the bottom. More next week upon your request.