How to customize the Vista Sidebar slideshow

Posted on February 21, 2009 at 5:21 am

If you have Vista, you might have been thrilled by that cute animating picture slideshow at the right side of your screen. By default, it will use the pictures inside the “sample pictures” folder inside your “my pictures” folder. You will notice that this works like a revolving digital picture frame and is a nice way to enjoy your valuable pictures without having to use your entire screen.

To set the program’s picture source, you will need to open the preferences window of this Windows sidebar object. All sidebars are configurable on a single way, just click the wrench like icon at the top-right side of the picture. (Note that this icon will appear only when you hover your mouse inside the sidebar object.)

The Slide Show preference window will let you set the folder, delay, transition effect and shuffle mode. Don’t forget to check the “Include subfolders” option to let the pictures inside subfolders to be included on the slide show. Click OK after you set the options that you desire:

You might want to change the position of the pictures other the sidebar so just drag the picture outside the sidebars panel:

It will appear as a bit bigger picture frame with more than twice the size as the original. It would have been great if we can set the actual size of the picture frame but sadly there is no way to set it on the settings window.

The Slide Show sidebar is a one cool toy to have in the Vista package. Folks who always want to view their pictures will appreciate the benefits of having this turned on in their desktop. Now only if there is a way to set the actual size…

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Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done.

» Filed Under Windows Vista

Comments

One Response to “How to customize the Vista Sidebar slideshow”

Patrick said on : February 21st, 2009 at 7:55 am

Perhaps I’m not the intended audience for this article but it seems like it’s an article telling you how to click the settings button…