Windows 9.x (XP instructions are below)

The default Windows color scheme is great if gray is your favorite color.  If it's not, you don't have to stick with it. Change your color scheme to something that fits your personality.

To customize your display scheme, follow these directions:

1. Single-click the Start button, mouse-over Settings, and then single-click Control Panel.

2. When the Control Panel opens, double-click the Display icon, and then select the Appearance tab.

Then:

Highlight the current color scheme by single-clicking the text under "Scheme."

3.With the text highlighted, scroll all the available choices by using the up and down arrows on your keyboard.

4. Next, scroll down the Item menu and begin setting things like Scrollbar size, Menu font and size, and Window color. Don't stop customizing until you get the look and feel you're after.

5. When you've finished customizing items, you're going to need to save your creation. To save, hit the "Save As" button.

Don't save it as Windows Standard. Think of a name for your new scheme, such as "My custom color". This is important because if you want to go back to Windows Standard later on, you'll still be able to.

After you've typed the name in, hit the OK button. The last thing you need to do is hit the Apply button on the main screen to watch you new color scheme unfold.

For XP Users:

Naturally, XP has an "improved" way of doing this. Funny how the improvements make it twice as hard as it was before, but who are we to judge to "wisdom" of Microsoft?

Anyway, here's how to change your appearance settings in XP:

1. Hit the Start button, Control Panel. When that opens, double-click your Display settings. Pretty much the same as above so far.

2. OK, XP likes to make everything into a "theme". When you make changes, you modify the theme or you can save the all your custom settings as a custom theme. See how much simpler that is than the old way?

Anyhow, you should be looking at the Display Properties screen now. Click the Appearance tab. From here, you can set the "look" as either classic or XP. You also have a couple color scheme choices, and you can make the font size larger or smaller.

For even more options, hit the Advanced button. This screen allows you to further customize windows. You can adjust your Desktop background colors, title bars, icon size, etc.

Once you have Windows set up the way you want it, click the Themes tab on the Display Settings screen. Once there, click the Save As button to save all your settings as a customized theme.

That's it. It's similar to methods used with previous versions of Windows, just more screens and tabs to fight with in the name of progress.