Using Decor8 to Change Your Windows 8 Start Screen
Monday, December 10, 2012 by Island Dog | Discussion: Personal Computing
Windows 8 has the new Start screen (aka Metro) which some users love, and others hate. After having use it for a while, I have come to like it and use it often especially since there have been some great apps released recently. One thing about the Start screen though is you really can’t customize it much aside from colors and a few included background images.
That’s where Decor8 comes in and gives you ability to further personalize your Windows 8 experience. Decor8 allows you to change the Windows 8 Start screen to one of many included images, or use your own images. You can also create a slideshow of pictures or have background images changed at timed intervals for an even cooler experience. Decor8 also does much more by letting you choose and create your own color themes, along with apply effects to your images and even control how many rows of tiles to show on your start screen.
You can get Decor8 here - http://www.stardock.com/products/decor8/
Using Decor8 is pretty simple. In the Backgrounds setting is where you can choose and set your start screen background image. As I mentioned before, there’s many included but you can certainly use any image on your PC. You can load an individual image file, or select image folders that Decor8 can display. All you have to do is select the image you want and you can click through to the start screen to see if you want to keep it or choose another. You can also choose several (or all) images and set them to change at timed intervals.
Decor8 also gives you the ability to apply effects to your background images. You can and adjust the fade on your images, add some blur, or adjust the color and contrast. This allows you to really personalize the start screen experience!
In the Colors settings, you can either choose to use a standard color theme, or get really creative and choose your own custom color scheme. Here you can change the colors of various areas including the background color, accent color, standard tile color, and the text color.
Additional features of Decor8 allow you to define the default row count for Tiles, and the ability to change your Lock screen images also. If you are tired of the default personalization options in Windows 8, then come give Decor8 a try and make your Windows 8 start screen your very own.
Decor8 is available as a free 30-day trial and can be purchased for only $4.99.
Get it now: http://www.stardock.com/products/decor8/download.asp
Reply #1 Monday, December 10, 2012 9:49 PM
Yes, I am enjoying Decor8 a lot, and like you, I am using the Metro/Modern UI more and more as time goes on, but not just for the new app releases, etc. I find it a handy place to store all my shortcuts and frequenly used programs. Furthermore, it is convenient and quite efficient when seeking an app for a particular job. While I have Start8 installed, I find that I am conveniently and quickly switching from the desktop to the Metro UI to access things more often than not nowadays. I occasionally use the conventional start menu, but nowhere near as frequently, and I believe Decor8 has, in part, influenced that change.
Having said that, however, there are a couple of other things I'd like to see included in Decor8.
Firstly, the ability to edit App Store tiles to make them more visually appealing, and to be able to create custom tiles with our own icons and backgound colours for installed programs.
Secondly, while tile goups can be named and you can group them into categories, I'd like to see some sort of a jump list to access items more quickly and conveniently in a large library of shortcuts.
Also, while Decor8 allows for more than the default 4 rows of tiles, my screen resolution does not allow me to add more, so perhaps the ability to resize tiles to enable a 5th and possibly 6th row could resolve this when a resolution adjustment is not possible.
Thanks for listening, Stardock, I am sure you will endeavour to make Decor8 all that it can be.