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Review: Decor8 lets you customize the Windows 8 Start and lock screens |
February 15, 2013
Windows 8 comes with an entirely new interface called Modern (formerly known as Metro), featuring generous swaths of color, flat icons, and large typography. You'll first meet Modern in the lock screen, immediately followed by the Start screen. You'll be visiting both quite often: The lock screen whenever you start using your computer, and the Start screen whenever you want to launch an application. As such, you might want to customize them a bit to suit your personal style. Microsoft offers a few preset backgrounds you can choose from, but for no-holds-barred personalization, you should try $5 utility Decor8.
Decor8 includes almost sixty background images, but also lets you pick one from your own albums.
Decor8 comes from Stardock, and just like the company's other customization products, it ties into Windows very tightly. While Decor8 isn't a Modern app, it looks like one: It can only run in fullscreen mode, and there's no way to resize the window. A sidebar lines the left side of the window, with a simple menu done in large type: Background, Colors, Options, Lock screen, and About.
The Background section lets you set what appears behind the tiles in your Start screen. The first few backgrounds in the list are simple vector affairs, quite similar to the limited selection that ships with Windows 8. But then the list goes on to feature bold nature and macro photos that stand in stark contrast to the flat Modern aesthetic and lend the Start screen a dramatic flair far beyond the default.
If none of the included options appeal to you, you can specify your own Start screen background using any image on your computer. You can select several images and have them rotate throughout the day at an interval you set, or set the Start screen background to be the same as your desktop wallpaper. You can also fade the image, blur it, and adjust its tint and contrast.
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Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2027929/review-decor8-lets-you-customize-the-windows-8-start-and-lock-screens.html
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