First of all, you may want to change your logon icon. This is the first thing you will see when you start up your PC. Your machine will come preloaded with dozens of logon icons, but if none of these are right for you, there's also LogonStudio Vista, a free program with hundreds of downloadable logon icons available. Alternately, if you have a photo of your own you'd like to use, changing the logon is as easy as drag and drop.

Tired of the default Windows theme? Its possible to change everything about the way your desktop looks by downloading new themes. To test this out, try downloading WindowBlinds, a program that includes several high-quality skins for Vista, with thousands more available to download. Not only can you change your background and visual style, you can also change the skin color, transparency, desktop icons, and much more.

Now that you've customized your background and overall theme, here's some extra utilities you may want to use to further customize your desktop. Changing your icons by hand would take a lot of effort and time. The best way to change Vista icons is by using an icon pack, which will switch nearly every icon for a corresponding one in the new pack. For a whole slew of downloadable icon packs, you can snag a trial version of IconPackager.

If you wish to continue on with your Vista customization, the next step is changing your cursor. CursorFX is an extremely popular free program that can transform your arrow cursor into anything you can imagine. Changing to the cursor you want is as easy as double-clicking, and reverting to a default cursor is just as easy.

You may be wary of changing the visual aspect of Windows Vista, or you may be wondering if customizing your desktop will slow down your performance in any way. This is not the case. As long as you follow the methods outlined in this article, every change you make is both reversible and makes no major changes to your operating system. In fact, some of the methods of customization may make the operating system run a little smoother.

Of course, you don't have to use all these tools at once. Feel free to pick and choose, and use a search engine to dig a little deeper for other customization programs. It's all about personalization, and what suits you best.