One of my favorite things about Windows 7 is how you can customize it and make it your own. Our personalization features give Windows 7 the ability to be as individual and to reflect who you are! Adding to this is a new Personalization Gallery on Windows.com, launched on Oct 22nd. With Windows 7, we’ve made it easy for people to customize their PC with different themes. Each theme has a custom background (or a series of backgrounds that shuffle), different Aero Glass colors, and sounds. Not only will you find Windows 7 themes on the Personalization Gallery, you’ll also find desktop backgrounds and desktop gadgets to download as well.

For the first time ever, Microsoft is working with other companies to enable them to offer their customers a branded experience on the desktop through Windows 7. The effort is part of a pilot program running until October 2010 by Microsoft Advertising. As of today, you will find themes from 7 global advertisers with well-known brands such as Coca Cola, Ducati, Ferrari, Infiniti, Pepsi, Porsche and Twentieth Century Fox on the Personalization Gallery for download. So if you are a fan of one of these brands, check them out! For more on this effort from Microsoft Advertising, see this blog post.

We’re also offering new Microsoft branded themes too – including the Xbox game Gears of War, Zune, and Bing!

So what if you want to make your own theme? No problem – it’s very easy. Click here for a step-by-step outline (and video) on how to customize and create your own themes. Once you’ve created your own theme, you can share it with you friends and family on Windows Live SkyDrive.

For you geeks out there wanting to know more about how we went about designing the ability to use themes in Windows 7, see this blog post on the Engineering Windows 7 Blog.

Windows 7 offers some really neat new personalization options for making your desktop yours. I wanted to share my favorite personalization option: the ability to shuffle desktop backgrounds. Windows 7 now supports selecting multiple pictures as desktop backgrounds which shuffle depending on how often you set it to shuffle.

I have a special folder called “Awesome Wallpapers” that is filled with, well, awesome wallpapers. I have my Windows 7 PCs shuffling between these photos every 10 minutes. I find it keeps my desktop “fresh”.

In the Windows 7 Beta – here’s how to enable shuffle for desktop backgrounds:

1. Right-click on your Desktop and choose Personalization.

2. Under the Personalization Control Panel, choose Desktop Background (bottom of screen).

3. Under Picture location, you can choose from the default locations for photos (including Top Rated Photos) or browse to a custom folder where you might be storing photos.

4. Choose multiple photos by checking each photo you want to appear as a background on your desktop.

5. At the bottom of the screen next to Picture position there is a drop down box and a check box for shuffling pictures on your desktop. Make sure the “Shuffle” checkbox is checked.

6. You can also customize how often pictures shuffle on your desktop via the drop down next to the “Shuffle” check box.

After selecting the backgrounds, enabling shuffle, and setting how often they shuffle – you can save your new “theme” in Windows 7 via the Personalization Control Panel (just click the back button from the Desktop Background screen).

You can see in the below screenshot I have a theme called “Brandon’s Awesome Theme”. Once you save your theme, it appears under “My Themes”.

TIP: You can also download new themes for the Windows 7 Beta by choosing “Get more themes online” under My Themes in the Personalization Control Panel.

You can download themes with new wallpapers from places around the world!