Windows Vista Security: Praxisorientierte Sicherheit für Profis

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Chapter 3: Fine-Tuning Windows Vista’s Appearance and Performance

Choosing and Managing Your Themes

Desktop themes are combinations of the visual and audio elements Windows Vista

uses to set the appearance of menus, icons, backgrounds, screensavers, system

sounds, and mouse pointers. The default themes your computer uses are based on

the user experience level.

Saving your customized settings

As you customize the backgrounds, screensavers, system sounds, and mouse point-

ers your computer uses, you modify the default theme; you can then save these mod-

ified settings together as a new theme by following these steps:

1. Right-click an open area of the desktop and then select Personalize. In the Per-

sonalization console, click Theme.

2. In the Theme Settings dialog box, shown in Figure 3-18, click Save As and then

use the Save As dialog box to save the theme. Theme definition files end with the

.theme file extension. Unless deleted in the future, the custom theme will appear

as an option in the Theme listbox.

Figure 3-17. Configuring your computer’s mouse pointers

Personalizing Windows Vista

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Applying a saved theme

In addition to any custom themes you create, several default themes are available,

including the Windows Vista theme used when you choose the Windows Vista Basic

or Windows Aero experience, and the Windows Classic theme used when you

choose the Windows Standard or Windows Classic experience.

You can apply a default or saved theme by completing these steps:

1. Right-click an open area of the desktop and then select Personalize. In the Per-

sonalization console, click Theme.

2. Use the Theme list to select the theme you want to use. If you want to use a

theme saved to an alternative location, select Browse and then use the Open

Theme dialog box to select the .theme file that contains the saved theme.

3. The Sample Pane provides a preview of the theme’s appearance. If the theme

appears as you expected, click OK. Otherwise, select a different theme and then

click OK.

Figure 3-18. Saving your settings as a theme