Any way to change the highlight colour in File Explorer?

Smurof Net · 22 Jan 2017

I've just got Windows 10, and I like a lot of things about it, including things related to the appearance. However the highlight colour in File Explorer is a light blue which is not all that different to the background colour. It's not easy to see at a glance which files are highlighted. I'd like to be able to change it to something a little more obvious.

The two ways I've seen to do this is to either turn on the high-contrast settings, or to use a third party program. The high-contrast settings are ugly no matter what you do (as you'd expect for something created for utility rather than design), and the only third party programs I've seen force you into having specific colour schemes, rather than allowing Windows to do the "choose accent colour from desktop picture" thing which I like a lot.

Is there any way I can change it? A registry hack, or something, or a third party bit of software which allows you to alter specific colours individually?

Thanks.

dalchina · 23 Jan 2017

Hi, Qttabbar (by Quizo) gives you lots of options to change colours in various areas of explorer and explorer related dialogues e.g. the control panel.
QTTabBar - QuizoApps

Any way to change the highlight colour in File Explorer?-snap-2017-01-23-07.23.15.jpg

It adds tabs too.

(It doesn't change the borders or icons- that's done by other means).

Smurof Net · 23 Jan 2017

dalchina said:

Hi, Qttabbar (by Quizo) gives you lots of options to change colours in various areas of explorer and explorer related dialogues e.g. the control panel. QTTabBar - QuizoApps

It adds tabs too. (It doesn't change the borders or icons- that's done by other means).

That's cool, thanks. My only issue with it is that it doesn't change the appearance of File Explorer if it's accessed from within a program - so if you use the "Open File" option from within a program it still has the same highlight issue. Other than that, it's a marked improvement.

dalchina · 23 Jan 2017

To colour other areas you need to do a widely-known regedit,
E.g.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors]
"Window"="250 250 177"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\Colors]
"Window"="250 250 177"

or use this tool provided by @Superfly of this forum:

Any way to change the highlight colour in File Explorer?-snap-2017-01-23-09.42.43.jpg

- which appears to include the highlight colour -
to substitute for some of the dialogue that used to be available in Win 7.

S.M.A.C.C - Superfly's Mouse Assisted Color Chooser

Whether a particular Open/save dialogue background is coloured appears to vary with the implementation. I have some whose background is coloured, and an increasing number that aren't - maybe another loophole MS is closing off in a quest to impose uniformity? Not every open/save dialogue is the same or implemented to the same rules.

Smurof Net · 23 Jan 2017

Thanks also, dalchina. I like both programs, but neither seems completely glitch-free. I can't change the highlight colour in File Explorer with either, but I can change the background to make it more visible. The problem is that not everything adheres to this it seems so, for example, the menu on the left of Thunderbird where you select inbox, sent, etc, now has white text on a white background.

dalchina · 23 Jan 2017

You can't win totally. Some programs are written with a fixed appearance with no flexibility. Not all adhere to the same standards. For example, some - typically multimedia programs- don't have a standard border.

Any way to change the highlight colour in File Explorer?-snap-2017-01-23-11.52.58.jpg

Thunderbird- the area you refer to is top left (also whitish). Note where the reg edit I used changed areas to the pale yellow I chose.

SonicBlue · 23 Jan 2017

I have been down this road many times and concluded that 10 has issues when it comes to remembering what color setting is set. Then when a it looses a certain color just reboot and it is back.

dalchina · 23 Jan 2017

I resolved that mostly by refreshing the theme (which I'd saved with the adapted colour) on resuming via a scheduled task. The background colour is lost on resume from sleep/hibernation unless you do that. (Not the most straightforward of things to achieve).