Personalizing Your Start Screen

Personalizing Your Start Screen

Personalizing the Start screen

You'll probably spend a lot of time on your Start screen, so you may want to personalize it so that it suits your taste. In this lesson, we'll show you several different ways to personalize it, including changing the background image and color, rearranging apps, pinning apps, and creating app groups.

To View Your Personalization Settings:

1. Hover the mouse in the lower-right corner to open the Charms bar, and then select the Settings charm.
   
   Selecting the Settings charm
2. Click Change PC settings.
   
   Clicking Change PC settings
3. Make sure Personalize is selected on the left side of the screen. Your settings will appear on the right side of the screen.
   
   Personalization settings

To Change Your Lock Screen Picture:

1. From your personalization settings, select Lock screen at the top of the screen.
2. Select the desired picture from the list of thumbnails. Alternatively, you can click Browse to select one of your own pictures.
   
   Selecting a lock screen picture

The lock screen will appear whenever your computer is locked, which happens automatically after a few minutes of inactivity. You can also lock your computer by clicking your account name and selecting Lock.

Locking the computer

To Change Your Start Screen Background:

1. From your personalization settings, select Start screen at the top of the screen.
2. Select the desired background image and color scheme.
   
   Changing the Start screen background

Windows 8 does not allow you to use one of your own photos as your Start screen background.

To Change Your Account Picture:

1. From your personalization settings, select Account picture at the top of the screen.
2. Click Browse.
   
   Changing the account picture
3. To use a photo in your SkyDrive, click on the desired SkyDrive folder. To select a folder on your computer, click the drop-down arrow at the top of the screen and select a different location.
   
   Navigating to the desired folder
4. When you have selected a photo, click Choose image.
   
   Selecting an image