Windows 7 Question about Window 7 menus and taskbar

LarryG

New Member
Hi, I'm new here and hoping that someone might be able to point me in the right direction.

I currently use XP but I am interested in upgrading to 7. I have spent dozens of hours researching Win 7 online, but my big questions do not appear to have easily found answers.

(1) Do all menus in Windows 7 share a similar appearance including the rounded corners? Can menu styles be changed? Of all the menus that I have seen in W7 in stores, the menus all looked very similar, but then too the computers all had the default blue color scheme, and the stores do not let customers change themes.

(2) Is the taskbar able to be colored to a color that the user wants? I am interested in having a dark gray taskbar; I doubt that I could endure a blue taskbar ever again (I've been using Windows since 3.1 and wow no more blue for me!). I am happy with the XP Zune theme, but it is getting rather old.

(3) Can the taskbar have the transparency effect turned off? I prefer solid backgrounds.

I have seen several W7 modification programs (like WindowBlinds) but I have never had luck with add-ons like that, so I want to make sure that W7 can change taskbar colors by itself. (The blue, green, and silver in XP is a rather poor variety of choices.) My occupation keeps me in front of computers at least eight hours a day and so I need some variety of scenery!

If anyone could provide a link to a website that has screenshots of W7 with different taskbar colors (especially with a dark gray) I would really appreciate it!
 
Hello and welcome to Windows7Forums.com :)

I can provide some assistance here for you:
Question 1: By this I assume you mean the rounded corners on the START menu, correct? That's the only menu I've ever found rounded corners on in Windows 7. Via Registry tweaks or customization problems it is of course entirely possible to eliminate these rounded edges for pointed ones, or whatever.

Question 2: Of course :) You have an RGB color slider in the desktop customization area that allows you to set virtually and colour and shade imaginable.

Question 3: Yes, in the same section as colour customization, you can set transparency from 0-100%.

I couldn't find any specific sites demoing the different colours, but a Google image search returned several different results.
Google Images

A
nd finally, make sure your hardware is capable of running Windows 7! The minimum requirements are as follows:
  • 1 GHZ or faster processor.
  • 1 GB of RAM or 2 for 64 Bit. Personally, I'd recommend at least 3.
  • DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver (this is required for Windows Aero, otherwise you'll have an ugly shade of grey for a taskbar that is non-changeable)


 
If you really want to change your desktop to something unique I would suggest purchasing the following
https://store.stardock.com/product.aspx?productid=ESD-SDS-W011
It has many apps that allow you to customize your desktop, such as Windows Blinds, Cursor FX plus, Desktopx, logon studio, Skin Studio 7 you can create your own skins using this program or tweak a skin you are using.
I would also recommend looking at Winstep Extreme Winstep Software Technologies - Desktop Themes and Customizing Windows
 
Hi

I would suggest that since you are switching from XP that you install Classic Shell.
It makes the interface look and work more like it does in XP with out giving up any features.

The one big advantage for me it that I don't have to scroll through all of my 90 some installed programs to find the one I want.
It opens multiple windows side by side as XP does when you click on All Programs.

I use it all the time, and it improves the functionality in Windows Explorer as well.

You only have to Shift Click on the start orb to switch back and forth.

Classic Shell | Download Classic Shell software for free at SourceForge.net

Mike
 
Hello and welcome to Windows7Forums.com :)

I can provide some assistance here for you:
Question 1: By this I assume you mean the rounded corners on the START menu, correct? That's the only menu I've ever found rounded corners on in Windows 7. Via Registry tweaks or customization problems it is of course entirely possible to eliminate these rounded edges for pointed ones, or whatever.

Question 2: Of course :) You have an RGB color slider in the desktop customization area that allows you to set virtually and colour and shade imaginable.

Question 3: Yes, in the same section as colour customization, you can set transparency from 0-100%.

Mitchell, remember that when you are changing the color setup like that it's not just the task bar that changes. I got the Idea that is what they where asking about. I feel his pain on the blue though, I dread going to my XP machine, cause of the taskbar color alone LoL. I have never seen the point in changing things like rounded edges on menus. It saves such little amounts of resources that it is almost counter productive. Just my thought about it.
 
Thanks everyone for the tips! At present I am using a background image that I made for the desktop that makes the image design appear to be part of the OS (I build websites, so I thought why not make the desktop look like a site? lol ). I'm going to bend someone's arm this weekend and have them let me tinker with their W7.

Mike, I just did a reinstall of XP on a drive and I decided to use the classic layout since XP allows a good quantity of modifications. I keep my All Programs menu segregated by types of programs (audio, hardware, office, web, etc.) that fan out several layers deep, and it never dawned on me until reading your comments that I too have a whole lot of programs. That's a feature that I definately need to work in W7.
 
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