I'm glad to hear you are starting to find Windows 8 a good solution for your workflow. Once you get past the loss of the menu bar in apps and start menu on the lower left, it's really pretty similar. Well, you do have to poke around to figure out things like how to print, but I think a 20-min primer by your IT people should have most everyone up to speed pretty easily.

As with most operating systems, however, it's kinda boring by default. I mean the lock screen is a bit cute (though it looks like an illustration for a kids game) but what about that darn start screen?

Turns out that there is a way to pick a new background and the way Microsoft's implemented it is quite interesting because they have both a set of different designs and a separate selector between about 25 different color schemes. Pick your favorite background color family, then step through versions of those background graphics that match.

Let's have a look. To start, here's my boring background graphic:

Definitely utilitarian, but not very inspiring.

To fix that, use Command-C or move your cursor to the corner to bring up the charms bar. Then look for Settings:

Now on the lower portion you should see a link labeled "Change PC Settings". Click on it and you'll see a bunch of things you can tweak, including "Personalize":

Choose that and you'll reveal the world of personalization available in Windows 8:

Notice along the top that you can also tweak your "Lock screen" here. But let's focus on the "Start screen". Click on it if you haven't already, then pick your favorite color theme from the options along the bottom (the two color pairs are foreground/background).

Once you've picked a color scheme the twenty or so larger tiles represent different graphical designs. Click on a few. Here's my favorite:

To set it, there's nothing else I need to do. If that's the last thing I clicked on before leaving the configuration area, it'll just appear!

In this small graphic it looks kinda busy, but on my big Win8 system screen it looks really cool and I'm quite happy with the combination of subdued background color and fun, lively, organic embellishments along the edge of my screen!