4th April 2001

Here comes Windows... there goes my sanity. I thought I had changed my default background color to black?! Ah, there we go; after it logs in, everything returns to normal. How can I change the default stuff to match my preferences? Fire up your Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_USERS \ .DEFAULT \ Control Panel \ Colors. Look for the "Background" value and change it to whatever RGB (red green blue) code you desire. Mine would be 0 0 0 (which is RGB for black). How did I know that? Easy. Right-click on your desktop and pull up its properties; flip to the Appearance tab, select the "Desktop" item, and change its color. Click the "Other" button. In the lower-right-hand corner of that dialog, you'll see Red, Green, and Blue fields. That's the sequence of numbers you'll want to use for your default background color in the Registry. Looking around, you may find other small settings to tweak (though none quite as obvious as the background color). For instance, in the Desktop sub-key at the same level, you'll be able to change the default wallpaper, screen saver, etc. Be careful about which numbers you change; one wrong digit and your operating system may self-destruct in five seconds.