On a whim I decided to clean up how my Windows looks and I was so thrilled I had to share it with u guys. This is assuming you are coming from a blank copy of Windows 10 1909. Sorry if this is in the wrong place

Before & after Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Using paint.net I made a bunch of my own icons which were white-on-transparent and 512x512. I can upload them if you guys want. I saved them as a png, which I converted to .ico files online.

Taskbar buttons are at C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar .

Start menu items can be in multiple folders. The best way to find them is just to right click the tile and go to More>Open file location. You can't change the icon of UWP apps. In these folders, you can not only change the icons but also rename them, move them in/out of folders (Personally it annoys me when I'm in the start menu program list and have to open a folder to get to my app.), and delete them from the list altogether. They won't be uninstalled, but you won't see them in the list.

Side note: I found that for some apps like Google Chrome it is possible to restore the default tile color & change the icon normally by going to C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application and renaming "chrome.VisualElementsManifest.xml" to "chrome.VisualElementsManifest.xml-asdf" but this resets after you restart your PC. If you never restart your computer this won't be a problem though

Once you find the shortcut, either for the taskbar or the start menu, just right click it, click "Properties," "Change icon..." "Browse...", and find the icon you made. Note: If you move that icon or rename it, you will have to do this step again as it will become a blank icon. After all these steps, it might be required to open task manager and restart explorer.exe

Some other things to do:
- right click on desktop > View > uncheck Show desktop icons
- Settings > Personalization > Start > turn off Show app list in start
- Download the app TranslucentTB, lets you put your taskbar to a nice blur effect
- A nice looking nature wallpaper
- Set my accent color to grey, a completely neutral color
- right click taskbar > Search > check Show search button
- Hide all tray icons except for internet & sound
Not exactly to do with personalizing Windows but things you should do anyway:
- Settings > Devices > Mouse > on the top right click Additional mouse options > Pointer Options tab > Uncheck "Enhance pointer precision"
- If you have an Nvidia gpu: Right click Desktop > NVIDIA Control Panel. Scroll down to "3. Apply the following settings." Where it says "Output dynamic range" change that to Full instead of Limited

If I'm forgetting any lmk