It's crazy to think that we're already at the end of 2021! At least we have the Christmas and Winter holidays to celebrate while we wait for the new year to approach. As always, a new month means we have a new desktop screenshot thread in the forums so our awesome community members can show off their desktops.

Let us know what skins and themes you are using, especially if you have a holiday themed desktop!

Post your desktops to the monthly thread here: https://forums.wincustomize.com/508626/

(This is a news thread and will be locked. Screenshot taken by don5318)

We hope everyone had a fun and festive Thanksgiving, and now that November is winding down it's time to focus on our Christmas desktops! Christmas is always a fun time for skinning as we have such a wide variety of themes to choose from here on WinCustomize. Some of my favorites for the season is animated wallpapers for DeskScapes. It's always relaxing to have a nice scene of animated Christmas trees on the desktop, and we have plenty of holiday scenes to choose from.

Here are a few of our favorites to get your holiday desktop started. Be sure to post in the comments what your favorite Christmas themes are so we can feature them throughout December.

Xmas Holiday by don5318 (WindowBlinds)

Christmas Tree (DeskScapes animated wallpaper)

Christmas Holidays V.2 (WindowBlinds)

Christmas Lights (Desktop Gadget)

Santa Claus (CursorFX)

Gingerbreads Playing in Snow (Wallpaper)

The Thanksgiving holiday is this week for many of us in the community. We wanted to take a moment and send out a big thank you to our community and to send a big Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is celebrating this week with family and friends. We appreciate everyone in our various Stardock communities, and we hope you have a great holiday!

Do you have any plans for this week or the weekend? Are you cooking anything good? Let us know in the comments!

We're halfway through November and the galleries are getting a nice stream of uploads over the past couple of weeks. There's lots to look at but today I just wanted to take a moment and feature some of the fantastic desktop wallpapers in the gallery.

You can check out all the latest desktop wallpapers here, and in the DeskScapes app.

The Surfing Whale

Teleported to Metaverse

Space Station

Climbing Up the Walls Blu

Fences 4 Beta 1 Available Today with New Peek Feature
Fences Peek and Desktop Display will improve your workflow
Get into the Beta Now

Stardock has released the first beta of Fences 4, a program that allows users to automatically organize files, folders, and applications on their PC desktops into custom-sized spaces called fences. Fences 4, designed to work with Windows 10 and 11, introduces Peek, a new feature that will streamline your workflow while keeping your desktop organized. 

Fences Peek lets users instantly view their fences by pressing Windows key + space to make accessing your content much faster. For example, while working in a program like Adobe’s Premiere or Photoshop, users can bring up a folder portal filled with their source footage and images to the surface of their desktop by pressing the assigned hotkey. This eliminates the need to minimize the application and go searching for the required asset in File Explorer. 

With the enhanced Desktop Display feature, users can configure Windows key + D to be either toggle or press-and-hold. This refinement makes the hotkey easier to use and allows users more control over how they manage and access their desktop content. 

"Fences 4 is designed to meet the needs of today's PC user," said Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock. "Fences has always been a great way to organize your desktop, and the new ‘Fences Peek’ and ‘Desktop Display’ features we have coming in the beta are perfect not only for organizing, but also optimizing your workflow in most applications." 

Along with new features, Fences 4 has been optimized so that it loads before the desktop when a PC is booted up, making Fences 4 not only more functional but also more performant. 

Coming soon, Fences for Business introduces new features for business users to make it easier keep their fleet of PCs organized and desktops standardized.  

The Fences 4 beta is available for $9.99 or through Stardock's Object Desktop
For more information, visit the Fences 4 website here. 

Thanksgiving isn't the most popular skinning holiday, but I wanted to feature a few Thanksgiving themes and wallpapers for those who want a festive desktop this month. The good thing about Thanksgiving is that many of our autumn skins will work perfectly for the holiday, and we have a wide selection of those already.

Check out a few of our favorites!

Thankful

Scenic IV

Happy Thanksgiving Holiday Spread

Two Pumpkins on a Table

Start11 Brings Customization to the Windows 11 Start Menu Today 
Learn more about Start11 at www.stardock.com 

Stardock released Start11™, a program that allows users to customize the Windows® Start menu and taskbar, today. As with previous editions of StartX products, Start11 allows users to restore the Start menu to appear as it does in previous versions of Windows, as well as customize and enhance its functionality.  

“Since Microsoft first announced Windows 11, we have been working to optimize Start11 for the new operating system” said Brad Wardell, Stardock CEO. “We make it easy for users to customize nearly every detail of their PC experience, including being able to choose from several new Start menu layouts and repositioning the taskbar, among many other things.” 

Start11 is designed for Windows 11 and Windows 10 and comes loaded with features intended to make Windows more personal and productive. Start11 supports moving the Start button to the middle or to the left, adjusting the taskbar size, re-ordering quick access shortcut lists, options for grid spacing, enhanced classic and modern search experiences, restoring the taskbar context menu, and more. Start11 also fully integrates with Stardock’s Fences app. 

For users who want to personalize their Start menu, Start11 offers robust customization options ranging from aesthetic to functional. The software enables enhanced Windows 10 and Windows 11 style Start menus, a compact Windows 7 design, optional Windows 11 style for classic menus, and additional settings that allow you to configure a personalized Start menu. 

The new UI has been designed to support additional Start menu enhancements, extending support to a host of new Start menu ideas like pages, minimalism, and features for enterprise customers. While Start11 does restore previous versions of the Start menu like Start8® and Start10®, it now provides robust options to create a truly personalized experience. 

November is here and we're getting closer and closer to the holiday season! It's not too early to start getting ready for the Christmas season, and I'm going to get to work on mine, and start featuring seasonal skins to for the community to check out. 

But since it's a new month, it's time to share your current desktops so take a screenshot and post to our desktop screenshot thread linked below and let us know what themes you are using this month.

Post your desktops to the monthly thread here: https://forums.wincustomize.com/507959/

(This is a news thread and will be locked. Screenshot taken by JanOscar)

Halloween is this weekend, so there's just a few more days to get your desktop ready for the day! We've been looking at many skins over the past couple of weeks, so I wanted to finish off the Halloween season with a few of our favorites. 

We want to see your Halloween desktops, so be sure to post a screenshot in our October desktop thread.

Bad Jack

Pumpkin

Creepers

Busy Night

Toxic Halloween

Stardock Announces Fences 4 with new features, a Refreshed
Interface and Support for Windows 11
Fences 4 offers an array of customizations to keep PC desktops clean and organized
Get into the alpha now (available exclusively through Object Desktop)

Stardock announced Fences 4, a program that allows users to automatically organize shortcuts and icons on their PC desktops into custom-sized spaces called fences. As with previous editions of the software, Fences 4 creates dedicated areas to organize icons and folders and offers additional customization features that has made it popular with millions of users of Microsoft Windows®. 

"Fences 4 is being designed to meet the needs of today's PC user," said Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock. "Fences has always been a great way to show a clean desktop or to organize it and now we are adding features that allow users who want a minimalistic desktop to have that while also supporting users who use the desktop as a natural extension of their work space."

Stardock has released an alpha version of Fences 4 for Windows 10 and 11 to users of its Object Desktop suite. New features will be added to it throughout the fall with a targeted release later this winter.

Upcoming features for Fences 4 include virtual desktop support, enhanced search functionality, roaming profiles, and many other updates that will help home and business users stay organized. 

Additionally, Stardock has announced Fences for Business, which will help keep PCs organized and standardized across the workforce. A new kiosk mode will help administrators lock their entire desktop layout, while the Snapshots feature will allow them to replicate layouts across multiple devices. 

The Fences 4 alpha is available exclusively through the Object Desktop™ suite. 
For more information, visit the Fences 4 website here.