How hard is it ?

 How hard is it for Microsoft to provide a framework so that people can add their own custom skins to the Metro UI  ( I know the Metro name is dead...but stick with me ..OK ?) .  

 Honestly, the current bland looking backgrounds and flat tiles are really *UN COOL*.  And I think this is what may be discouraging lot of yuppies from adopting Windows phones and will discourage from adopting windows surface tablets.

 Just my 2 cents....but Microsoft will need their mental abilities to be checked to ignore this simple enhancement.

You can make your Windows 8 apps look and work however you want them to. What is it you're looking for?

Look at Windows 8 apps like iCookbook. It's still follow the Windows 8 design guidelines, yet it has a live of it's own.

Not every app needs to look boring like the Windows Store.

@Harlequin: Well, I am not talking about just the look of my own windows 8 app. I am talking about the entire desktop. I want my own background wallpaper and the tiles to have a 3D look or Custom shapes.

@Srikanth_t:  "yuppies" ?? !!        

I haven't heard that term in years. The yuppies must all be over 50 by now... (the sell outs).

I don't know what current culture slang for "Young Upwardly mobile Professionals" --

perhaps "Unemployed" is most appropriate these days...

Because

A) Adding a feature requires people to write the feature, people to test the feature and studies to check that the feature isn't an anti-feature in disguise.

B) Not many people want that feature - in the judgement of the shell team it's not important.

C) None of Microsofts competitors allow you to change stuff like that, and nobody seems to really mind.

Yuck. If it were customizable, then the OEMs would * all over it every chance they got.

@blowdart: I am totally cool with Live tiles and whatnot. The idea of tiles showing the live content is really unique to Metro and I like it.  I just want the background wallpaper to be other than as if somebody dropped a bucket of solid color on the floor. Same with the live tile background.

@JohnAskew: LOL!

4 hours ago, Srikanth_t wrote

@blowdart: I am totally cool with Live tiles and whatnot. The idea of tiles showing the live content is really unique to Metro and I like it.  I just want the background wallpaper to be other than as if somebody dropped a bucket of solid color on the floor. Same with the live tile background.

I think they went with solid colors because the whole idea of Metro is to focus on the content. If you had a busy background image, the live tiles might fade into the background.

8 hours ago, Srikanth_t wrote

 

 How hard is it for Microsoft to provide a framework so that people can add their own custom skins to the Metro UI  ( I know the Metro name is dead...but stick with me ..OK ?) .  

 Honestly, the current bland looking backgrounds and flat tiles are really *UN COOL*.  And I think this is what may be discouraging lot of yuppies from adopting Windows phones and will discourage from adopting windows surface tablets.

 Just my 2 cents....but Microsoft will need their mental abilities to be checked to ignore this simple enhancement.

I think it's best they don't, as we discovered in the days of Win 9x people love to set their Window chrome to garish fluorescent colours, their system font to 36 pt. Comic Sans and their desktop icons to something that looks like their wallpaper. It's all well and good until they ask you to fix their PC.

(A quick Google didn't turn up any screenshots of 9x, but it did return the infamous hotdog stand:

)

I also echo what's been said above about not trusting OEMs.

@GoddersUK:lol, you can like it on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Windows-31s-Hot-Dog-Stand-Theme/65261467462

@spivonious:

What I don't like is that they're baking in a limited set of image overlays. Either include none, or let people download custom ones, imo.

Also, I'd rather have simple flat color patterns than image overlays... like wallpaper patterns, modern colorblocks or traditional designs (lots of nice European and Japanese pattern designs)

The only way I will use Windows 8 is if I can change it's color scheme to something more pleasing, like Hotdog Stand.