Now that we're almost clear of the Halloween season, the next event to look forward to is Thanksgiving near the end of November. Halloween and Christmas are our two biggest skinning holidays, and Thanksgiving has never really been popular for desktop themes.

Even though I like changing my desktop for the seasons and holidays, I usually just skip ahead and get my Christmas desktop going.

So that's the question this week. Do you add any Thanksgiving themes to your desktop?

As we've done in the past, I get emailed and read blogs about design and a couple times of year various sites put out their seasonal colors, and the latest is from Creative Market. They have Cosmic Iris as their "Color of the Season".

"Iris: a flower with sword-shaped leaves, the Greek goddess of rainbows, the part of your eye that lets light in. As we discover what this new normal can look like, here’s a color that captures our quest for the unknown. The curiosity in experiencing familiar places with new eyes. Cosmic Iris is a blue-to-purple hue that takes us to a place of wonder."

HEX: #7B93E8
RGB: 123, 147, 232

I do like the color but it's not something I would associate with the fall season. Maybe I'm just a bit more traditional but I'd like to hear your opinions on it. What types of skins or themes do you think this color would look good with?

I used to enjoy changing the login or lock screen on Windows. We had LogonStudio which was a great tool for customization, but as Windows progressed versions the ability to customize it was pretty much gone. In Windows 10 you can set to your selected image or slideshow or use the Windows Spotlight feature which picks a daily image for you to display. You can also select certain apps that will show a quick status on the screen such as your calendar or mail app.

I usually don't pay much attention to the lock screen as when I boot my PC up, I'm trying to get right to the desktop. When I notice the lock screen sometimes, I'll usually just change image to something for the current season and that'll be it.

I just wanted to ask the question if anyone takes the time to change their lock screen, or gives it much attention?

I get a lot of emails from creative and design websites, but this one caught my eye because orange is a favorite color of mine and I like this one. Creative Market is calling this the "color of season" for spring, and I think it would be a nice choice for some skins and themes. 

HEX: #FF825C
RGB: 255, 130, 92

"A mid-century revival with a bright red undertone and high chroma, Electric Tangerine feels both vintage and futuristic. Nostalgic and hopeful. This punchy hue captures the renewal energy many are starting to feel."

I think a Curtains themes would look great with some of this color incorporated into it. What do you think about this color? Would you like to see some themes with this?

I have been looking at the 2020 data for WinCustomize regarding the top downloads and galleries for last year. I always find it very interesting to see what other people are downloading. Sometimes it's skins you might have missed or didn't expect to be popular. Everyone has a different style they like, so it's also a good way to keep up on any trends that might be happening.

So, let's take a look at the most downloaded skins on WinCustomize in 2020!

Top 10 Overall Downloads

CREATION was the overall most downloaded skin in 2020 with just over 20,000 downloads. Windows Zero came in next with nearly 15,000 downloads, and the remaining skins were in the 7000-12000 download range. Quite impressive!

1. CREATION (Dream) by adni18
2. Windows Zero (WindowBlinds) by adni18
3. Dark Mode (WindowBlinds) by Vad_M
4. The_Beautiful_Hawaii_Sea (Dream) by cyberslober
5. Hal 2030 (CursorFX) by theAVMAN
6. jarvis (Sound Schemes) by ultimate-virus
7. Piranha FX (CursorFX) by neone6
8. Vista Plus (WindowBlinds) by adni18
9. 4K Black Hexagons (Dream) by AzDude
10. Peaceful Sunset (Dream) by adni18

How does WindowBlinds 10 handle older skins on the latest version of Windows 10?

The answer: Inconsistently.  There are some apps, like Notepad, where it always works fine.  Others, like an Explorer window it sometimes works fine.  And then there’s Edge where it rarely works fine.  Look at the results yourselves.

For the next version of WindowBlinds we are looking to either update the most popular skins (certainly the OS skins) so that they work with the modern versions of WindowBlinds and/or update WindowBlinds to be able to handle these skins more reliably in today’s high resolution, high DPI (and often mixed DPI) world.

Happy December! The holiday season is here, and we've been talking about holiday skins for the past couple of months. Now that many of us have our holiday desktops in order, let's find out what the favorite holiday skins of our community are!

What's my favorite? There are many wonderful holiday WindowBlinds skin out there, but I always appreciate the design of Christmas Holidays by adni18. 

Post a link or image of your favorite holiday skin or theme in the comments below and lets share our favorites!

I was searching through WinCustomize looking at some Christmas skins and I came across what I think is one of the most classic skins of Christmas. That of course would be ChristmasTime by mormegil!

The WindowBlinds skin was first released way back in 2003 for the Stardock 2003 Christmas Suite.  At that time, WindowBlinds 4 was the latest version and it was later updated to support WindowBlinds 5 which brought support for per-pixel alpha blending, toolbar button changing, progress animation improvements, animated per-pixel Start menus, title bars, and much more.

I used this skin for many holidays years after it was released and is one of my top five favorites of all time. It was hugely popular back then and was the base for many desktops around that time. In addition to the WindowBlinds skin, Paul (mormegil) came out with a lite and full icon pack that was just as amazing. As of today, the WB skin alone has over 400,000 downloads!

Download here:

WindowBlinds

IconPackage

Wallpaper

Members of the community (with permission) also created some matching themes. 

CursorFX by Keila

Calendar by _Martin_

Snowflakes by _Martin_

Since we're revisiting this skin, I installed the skins on my Windows 10 PC to see how they work many years after they were released. So how do they look? Well not too bad for such old skins.

For the WB skin the most obvious issue is the taskbar, but that is to be expected with all the changes since Windows XP. Icons applied simply fine and worked. The CursorFX theme also worked with no issues that I noticed. Even though there are some minor issues, this still brings back great skinning memories and I think I'll keep it around for a while.

Do you remember the Christmas Time suite? Let us know in the comments below! 

Is there really anyone here who isn't tired of the sounds when using Windows? 

In comes SoundPackager. I always relate SoundPackager to IconPackager simply because both use "packages" to change their respective items. One of the best things about SoundPackager is that not only does it change a bunch of system sounds at once, it also allows you fine tune the sounds and easily add or delete specific sounds if you wish.

Now that you have heard all that good stuff, let's go through using SoundPackager.

Interface
SoundPackager has an exceptionally clean and easy to use interface. On the left side of the window, you have the navigation for SoundPackager.  The Welcome screen gives you a brief introduction and gives info such as the current version number.

Installing and Changing Sounds 
The Sound Packs screen shows you which icon packs you have installed.  

If you want to install a new sound pack that you downloaded from WinCustomize, just double-click the .soundpack file and it will install into SoundPackager.   

When you select an individual sound pack you have a few details you can use such as the author information and description. You will also have an apply button, edit button, and a play button where you can sample the sound pack.

To change your system sounds, either double-click the package you want to apply or select the sound package and hit the "Apply sound pack" and your new sounds will be applied and ready to use!

More Sounds
You know how to change your sounds, but what's the point if you can't find more sound packs, right?  Well, no problem there, as WinCustomize has an entire library dedicated to sound packs for SoundPackager. You can quickly get to the gallery by clicking the "Get More Packages" button in the "More Packages" section in SoundPackager.

Better yet, SoundPackager has built-in integration with WinCustomize so you can browse and download the latest sound packs right from SoundPackager! Just select the Online tab and see all the latest packs.

Edit Sounds

SoundPackager makes it easy to edit and create new sound packages. You can even share these with other users to enjoy as well!

The edit screen allows you to view the available sounds in Windows and other sound packs. You can then change those sounds to your own files and save that sound pack to use in SoundPackager.

So, there you go! A straightforward way to change your Windows sounds with creative and cool sound packs that will add another level to your desktop customization experience.

Don't have SoundPackager yet? Get it here. You can also purchase a low-cost membership to Object Desktop to get SoundPackager, plus a bunch of other fantastic productivity and customization apps for your PC.

Do you skin on Turkey day? Get it.... Turkeys....skins......oh never mind.

As we have discussed before, Halloween and Christmas are the two biggest skinning holidays of the year, but we do have one more between that, and that would be Thanksgiving. It hasn't been a big skinning holiday and there's only about two pages worth of uploads. 

My question is though, is it something you skin your desktop for? Just wondering if we should be looking out for more or just focusing on the next big holiday.