Ever wanted to customize the Windows 8 lockscreen and been frustrated by its limitations? Lockscreenify knows how you feel, and it can remedy your situation.

While you can customize the look and feel of Windows 8 to some extent, there's no built-in way to add certain things to the lockscreen, like notes or a personal message.

If you want full control over your lockscreen, read on.

Setting It Up

Though it can't replace your lockscreen entirely, Lockscreenify works by generating an image and setting it as your lockscreen's background. It does this every 15 minutes; this way widgets that need updating, like weather, news, and stocks, stay current. It's not as convenient as some of the lockscreen replacement options for Windows Phone 8, but it gets the job done.

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Once you've downloaded the app from the Windows Store, you'll open it up to find the typical horizontal-scrolling found in most Windows 8 apps. If you want to browse popular templates or see lockscreens created by other users, scroll right, but the main button you'll need is the first one: Configure My Lockscreen.

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From there, you'll have two options: Pick A Template or Pick Featured Template. Select Pick A Template. The Featured option just automatically chooses one of the templates for you, and likely won't be the one you want.

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Next, you can browse sideways through a wide range of templates. Once chosen, the general layout isn't customizable. So if you pick one with Weather, Stocks, and a Calendar, don't expect to just be able to remove the Stocks. You'll need a different template for that.

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After that, it's time to customize your selection. Enter the city for your weather, choose what kind of calendar you want, enter any notes that you want to keep, etc. While there is a wide range of options available, not all of them are as customizable as you'd think. For example, the quotes option only lets you choose from their pre-selected quotes -- no adding your own.

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Once your data is configured, it's time for background images. You can choose from three options: a solid color, a pre-selected background image, or the current weather. Unfortunately, your only options for backgrounds images are provided by Lockscreenify; you can't use your own. But it is possible to locate the Windows 8 lockscreen images to use elsewhere, if you want to set them as a desktop or Start Screen background.

However, their built-in options for background images are pretty cool, and you can apply a nice blur effect if you want.

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When you click Preview at the bottom, Lockscreenify will take a few seconds to generate your background image.

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After that, you'll need to approve it to run in the background (for syncing purposes), and then you're all set.

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Pricing It Out

So what does all this cost? Lockscreenify itself is free, but there are several in-app purchases. You can remove ads from the homescreen for $5.99, but that seems highly unnecessary since the ads are only visible if you scroll far to the right while in the app. They don't appear on your lockscreen or anything like that.

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You can also buy additional templates for $1.49, which is much more reasonable. There's a decent selection of free templates, but the paid ones have more widgets, like a sports score updater or image slideshow.

The Result

In the end, the lockscreen you create turns out pretty nice. See the one I made below for an example.

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When previewing the lockscreen, it will seem like there's a big gap in the bottom left, and that's because that's where Windows puts the time and date on your lockcreen. Check out the screenshot of the preview view below.

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Unfortunately, because it's just an image refreshed every 15 minutes, the widgets don't have the same kind of interactivity as lockscreen widgets for Android would. To edit things like the chosen quote, your notes, or your news provider, you have to go back through the template creation process and change it. That's quite a hassle if you plan on changing it much, but if you just want to create a cool lockscreen and leave it, no problem.

Overall, it's great to see developers getting creative and taking some initiative with Windows 8 apps finally. Lockscreenify is a fabulous way to have a more customized Windows 8 experience.

You can download Lockscreenify for free at the Windows Store.

What do you think of this app? Any other cool Windows 8 customizations apps you'd like to share? Let us know in the comments.