Help understanding colors in windows 10

chris3353 · 17 Nov 2021

version 21H1

Hello all and pardon my ignorance about windows 10. I held on to 7 for as long as i could but know i need some help.
I read a dozen post/articles and none help me understand what I am doing wrong.

1- I changed my background color,,, All good
2- I changed my "windows color" to a rust color and without checking title bar and borders i get rust on some title bars, some borders and the start menu.

3- ticking/unticking "title bars and window borders has no effect.

If i change "choose your color" from light to dark I can not read anything in any windows folders. It changes all background to BLACK and the title/nav areas a baby blue with white fonts.

I must be missing something very simple. It can not be possible after ~40 years of windows this is as good as it gets?

I have read tutorials and can not make any logical sense out of the process. I am sure it is me but this is aggravating and a huge time suck.

Help understanding colors in windows 10-windows-color.jpg

Help understanding colors in windows 10-explorer.jpg

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Where is the setting to change the background color in programs like word, explorer, thunderbird, Dark changes it to black, the background color should be retitled "desktop" and not "background"

steve108 · 17 Nov 2021

Hello Chris,
Some of the settings changes may not take complete effect until you reboot - so try that if relevant.

dalchina · 17 Nov 2021

Where is the setting to change the background color in programs like word, explorer, thunderbird,

Hi,
1. Some Third party programs like Thunderbird, Office have their own independent options.

Help understanding colors in windows 10-1.jpg

2. Some browsers e.g. Firefox have addons that can help here.

3. File explorer and related backgrounds- cannot be set via the registry. Instead use Qttabbar (free) by quizo, which lets you set colours for different regions, and also adds many other features to file explorer including tabs, recent files, etc etc

Help understanding colors in windows 10-2.jpg

4. To change background colours in e.g. Wordpad, Notepad etc- there's a well-known registry change you can use, or you can try SMACC (free) by member Superfly, which can help change colours in numerous parts of windows.

To an extent, it compensates for the lack of the Advanced Appearance Settings dialogue.

Finally, some 3rd party programs have non-standard windows and frames.

chris3353 · 17 Nov 2021

dalchina,

I tried the program from superfly and although i am grateful to people that write code it is useless to me. Does most things halfway.

Help understanding colors in windows 10-half-way.jpg

It inconceivable that with all the "upgrades" that dark themes and colors working across programs is still a PIA.

dalchina · 17 Nov 2021

Thank you for your reply.

You can of course make the same changes that does in the registry. Feel free to do so.

However, given what you show, I suggest you revert to default, take a step back, take a deep breath, then try one thing until you actually understand what you're doing.

Doing little is often the best way.

tenforums members time and again recommend the routine use of disk imaging (e.g. Macrium Reflect - free/paid) so you usually can return to a previously known good state.

System Restore complements this usefully (when restoring succeeds).

I trust you have been using those and so can return to an unmodified state. Good luck.

Callender · 17 Nov 2021

chris3353 said:

It inconceivable that with all the "upgrades" that dark themes and colors working across programs is still a PIA.

It's down to each program developer to support Dark Mode, and many do not.

MaloK · 17 Nov 2021

If you want to use Dark Mode you have to choose much darker colours, reload windows default, switch back to the "dark side" and validated each changes one at the time. Some Applications have internal Dark mode support you need to enable it, some don't.

Playing a little too much with themes and Vbox, Photoshop, Vegas pro, Resolve, Starts to exhibits strange behaviours.

Got to >Settings > Personalization > Colors > Choose your color: Select Dark

Choose default windows Mode: Dark

Choose Default App Mode: Dark

Transparency Effect: On (If not, no accent will work)

Then choose your accent colour. "Go DARK".

HTH