In the recent weeks, we have acquired the phony habit of customizing our Windows desktop PC's. The following is my checklist for making a Windows PC more pretty. ## Making Windows Themable You go and download the universal theme patcher: * Universal Theme Patcher Homepage (Author's Blog) * Universal Theme Patcher on nullteilerfrei Then, you click it. You can find a ton of themes on deviant art, but I'd strongly advise against overly dark themes, it really does not make for a healthy working environment. ## The Logon and Boot Screen To customize the windows login screen to look really nice, we have to do several things. * To change the background image, you simply use the Tweaks Logon Changer: * Tweaks Logon Changer Homepage * Tweaks Logon Changer on nullteilerfrei * To remove the little branding logo on the bottom of the login screen, you open the file

%SystemRoot%\Branding\Basebrd\basebrd.dll

in a resource editor of your choice ((We recommend either resourcer or resource hacker.)) and simply delete the corresponding resource bitmaps. Note that some of the bitmap resources are not used for the logon screen but for other dialogs, such as the shut down menu that appears when pressing ALT+F4 on the desktop. * If you have a fingerprint reader and you are annoyed by the blue Fingerprint icon, you can change these icons by replacing the bitmaps in the file

%SystemRoot%\System32\BioCredProv.dll

## The Boot Screen To change the Windows boot screen, best use the Windows 7 Boot Updater: * Windows 7 Boot Updater Homepage * Windows 7 Boot Updater on nullteilerfrei ## The Start Orb For changing the start Orb in Windows, I strongly recommend using the Start Orbz Studio; * StartOrbz Studio on deviant art * StartOrbz Studio on nullteilerfrei ## The Wallpaper Seriously? I really like wallhaven, but there are most literally a million wallpaper archive sites out there.