14 DAY TRIAL // Many users change their desktop wallpaper whenever they bump into a nice picture that fits the screen. Automating this procedure with software solution is common practice for many, and although AeroWallpaperChanger seems no different than these apps, it actually stands out through one feature: the possibility to adapt your Aero color to something in tone with the desktop image.
AeroWallpaperChanger is free of charge and getting it on the desktop is no rocket science. Follow the indications of each screen and you’ll be off in no time.
It does not come with an interface per se, but you get to see a double-tabbed configuration panel which shows off the application’s abilities. The simple and intuitive view of the functions is no challenge, even if you are a beginner user.
The application can rotate the images in a folder of your choice with a specific frequency so that your desktop is never boring. Loading up the pictures can be done with a simple drag and drop of the items in the Slideshow tab of the configuration panel.
Setting up the way the pictures roll on your screen is an easy job. The options available let you define a value from one to 60 and set the unit to minutes, hours or days. Other refreshing options include changing the image at when AeroWallpaperChanger launches (which can be at system startup).
As far as the layout is concerned, you have the same choices as in the case of setting the desktop background straight from Windows: fit, fill, stretch, tile or center.
The app can freshen up the screen by randomly picking up the images or it can follow the order they are displayed in the slideshow area, by name.
Up to here AeroWallpaperChanger does not impress with anything, since the aforementioned options are also present in Windows Slide Show section (see Desktop Background under Personalize). However, it is versatile enough to offer you the possibility to stop rotating the pictures when the machine is in battery mode. Also, the second tab is where it shows its differences from apps of the same feather and what Windows has to offer in this sense.
Listed under “Other settings” there is the possibility to enable the change of Aero color according to the currently displayed wallpaper. There are several choices in this area.
You can set color effects based on the average color of the photo or pick color rainbow, which works independent of the desktop wallpaper.
The color effects include color animation over inverted colors, over black or plain and simple. Any of these may be visible to a keen eye alone, but even untrained users will notice the chromatic synergy as the result.
Going with color rainbow is like having aurora light constantly influencing Windows Aero. The colors will keep changing creating pretty cool effects on application window title bars and the taskbar.
More options in AeroWallpaperChanger let you instruct it to start with the operating system or pick a global key combination to change the current wallpaper at will.
During our tests the program did not abuse RAM usage as we expected as soon as we ran in in “Color rainbow” mode and CPU levels were quite satisfactory, as well.
The simplicity of the application is amazing. It sports only the basic options, no bells and whistles or anything the user is unlikely to use, and also brings in some chromatic features a trained eye would easily spot.
However, there is a drawback to all this, since AeroWallpaperChanger does not bring an image repository the user can choose from. We worked with NatGeo in order to get a beautiful cache of wallpapers, but it would be nice if one could access an online cache to draw random wallpapers in, with the possibility to schedule the removal of the elements after a certain amount of time.
Once you launch it, AeroWallpaperChanger will sit quietly in the system tray area and update the desktop screen with a new image according to your setup. It does not need to be tweaked a lot, but if you need to constantly feed it new picture to keep the desktop fresh.
The application can change Windows Aero color to match the current desktop wallpaper or create a rainbow effect. In lack of a help file explaining the Aero options a less trained eye might not observe the effects too soon.
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