Office 2016 - Latest update - Black Theme now Gone

gr82banautiger said:

So it's available in 2019 without a subscription? I might see if it's an option for us to upgrade... My eyes are very sensistive to very bright backgrounds, and they get more tired during a long day with very bright backgrounds.

I am not sure about that. My copy of Office 2019 doesn't have it. I suspect it is the same deal as before where if you link Office365 into the application you can unload the black theme.

IRRELEVANT TO THIS THREAD:

• That you can get black theme in "Insider version" or Office 365. This is already known. This thread is about the non-cloud versions i.e Office 2016 and Office 2019.
• That some people do not in fact like black themes. If you don't - then this thread is irrelevant to you and you do not need to post.
• That you can get Office 365 in various cheap or free ways... Some people just DON'T want it even if it is free, since it takes personal user data and puts it in the Microsoft cloud, in the USA, on servers that are shared by default with the NSA and other US and allied agencies. A person does not need to be a terrorist or pedophile to value his or her privacy! Anyone who believes in the principle of privacy will not want Office 365 OR the Insider version for this reason. However - we may still want the black theme!

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I am on Office 2016 Build 4939 -- a rather old build at the time of writing.
I have followed all the instructions to the letter (UI Theme key set to 4 and read-access only). Also updated the binary value to 4 in the Roaming profile folders. I still cannot get this to work. With 4 set, and reading access only, Excel opens in Colourful mode, instead of the one I had entered previously - "Dark Grey".

If I allow Full control, then Excel resets the theme to Dark Grey every time it opens. Microsoft has gone to some significant lengths to prevent anyone from getting the grey theme in Office 2016. As the user points out just above - it is also disabled in Office 2019. If anything they made that build even harder to hack. Possibly the Black theme files are missing from my installation - I'll investigate that angle.
But I am close to the limit of my Windows tweaking skills with this. Amazing what length M$ goes to, to push users to Office 365.

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Edit - after spending SEVERAL hours in the sofa, researching this without being successful, I uninstalled Office 2016 with the intention of installing an early build, where the hack would still work - like a person in this thread did.
However - I was not able to get any of the installation builds that I downloaded to run.
At this point I had to give up the effort and decided to go with Office 2019 - since one person said it contained the black theme (whereas another said he was not getting it).

I downloaded and installed an Office 2019 build from 2018 - one of the earliest.
It immediately started as Black. Since I had restricted access to the Commons folder in the Registry, Excel and Outlook did not want to start. Had to reverse that. I now have all the main programs in Black. Access does not seem to be available in Black and I have not yet installed Visio and MS Project. It's not exactly tools I use frequently on my home PC - so that's not an issue. Word, Excel and Outlook were the priorities. Mission accomplished!

Fwiw:



Not that it fixes it! lol

Hi there
@ProfFancyPants

Black is available in Office 2019 - works fine - just open any office product and set the theme in your account

Here's a screenshot (svart is Icelandic for the Black theme in English) - even after latest update from Office 2019




Cheers
jimbo

flybynite said:

Office Click to Run Color Changer -- Black, Gray, White, Colorful

This is a portable application which will apply a Black Theme to C2R Office programs. Every Office program (except Access) will open with the Black Theme no matter if you open the application, a saved document, or a shortcut to that document. Options are also included for each of the other color schemes in Office. You must have Office installed before you use it. This works with both 32 & 64 bit versions of Office and Windows.

Attachment 162160

I cannot download this file, any help?