•• Your screen saver. •• The design of icons like Computer, Network, Control Panel, and Recycle Bin. •• The color scheme for your window edges, plus any tweaks you make in the Color and Appearance dialog box (font size, window border width, and so on). •• The size and shape of your arrow cursor. •• The sounds your PC uses as error and alert beeps. It’s fun to customize your PC (especially because it’s your opportunity to replace, at last, that huge Dell or HP logo that came as your preinstalled wallpaper). This is also yet another way to shut off some of Aero’s cosmetics. To see your theme choices, right-click a blank spot on the desktop. From the shortcut menu, choose Personalize. Note: There’s no Personalize option in the Starter Edition of Windows 7. What few appearance options are available are described in the box on page 178.
The Personalization control panel opens, revealing a window full of factory-installed icons for different visual themes (Figure 4-3). Clicking one applies its look to your desktop world instantaneously, making it simple to try on different themes. Figure 4-3: A theme is more than a color scheme. It also incorporates a desktop background, a standard screen saver, and even a coordinated set of alert sounds. The four icons across the bottom show you the current desktop, color, sound, and screen saver settings for whatever theme you click.