Change color of menubar and list header?

On Windows 10 the menubar and list header are white by default. I'd like to change them to a greyish color instead. I've tried using the SMACC tool, editing the registry, and editing my main .theme file, but nothing so far has changed these two colors. Maybe they're defined in the .msstyles file or a .dll file somewhere?

Btw, the list header I'm talking about is the topmost header row in any ListView control, which usually allows you to click on it to sort the list contents or change list column widths.

Any ideas on this?

Thanks

Thanks, I've tried that already, but it only adjusts the titlebar, taskbar, and start menu.

I'm willing to use Resource Hacker if that's what it takes!

Fin said:

Thanks, I've tried that already, but it only adjusts the titlebar, taskbar, and start menu.

I'm willing to use Resource Hacker if that's what it takes!

You'll have to do some digging into msstylesheets, lots of work!

I realize High Contrast themes don't look the greatest, but, you can hit pretty close to center with them:

Edwin said:

I realize High Contrast themes don't look the greatest, but, you can hit pretty close to center with them

Lol, yes, I'd say those don't look the greatest, but they do have non-white menubar and list headers. I did try them for fun, and it shows that what I want to do is technically possible, somehow.

The default Windows 10 Aero theme is pretty decent, with just a handful of colors that need changing. And that's my goal. So far I've found out how to set custom colors for the active and inactive titlebars, and a different custom color for the taskbar and start menu, and also the selected item color (that intense blue was too much). Just two more colors to go and Win10 will finally be easygoing for my eyes.

I experimented some more with a high contrast theme, and plugged in all the colors I could into it. It did change the menubar and list header to a better color, but it seems that too many appearance settings are not defined by the .theme file, and it ended up looking not as good as the aero default theme. And firefox is apparently aware of the high contrast theme being used, since it changes how it renders web pages to match. It was worth a try, but doesn't look to be a way to do what I want with my colors.

Thanks for all the great info Jerry!

I've worked on this a while today, but I may be stuck for now. It looks like UltraUXThemePatcher 3.0.5 (the latest version) is not compatible with my version of Windows 10 v1511 (build 10586) as the developer says on his website. I also tried UniversalThemePatcher but it wouldn't let me patch anything at all.

If I were to directly edit images in the aero.msstyles file using Resource Hacker, would those style changes work without using the patch tools? Btw, I have multiple types of backups of my system, so I'm prepared for some direct editing of system files.

Success! Once I used the Mr. GRiM method for placing the theme files and folders then they finally became active.

I needed to modify some other image numbers than the ones you suggested, maybe because I'm using a different dpi setting?

Here are the images I modified, along with some that I didn't end up needing:

#572 for list header background
#602 for ? (wasn't active, not sure what it does)
#603 for list header background (wasn't active, but I modified it just in case)
#749 for toolbar background
#1197 for menubar background

Thanks for your help on this Jerry! Now I can finally get Windows looking more how I'd like it.

A sample of my progress so far. Clean and simple, but not all-white like the default theme is. There needs to be some contrast to make things easier for your eye to find.