How to Change Accent Color of Start Menu, Taskbar, Action Center, and Title bars in Windows 10
Windows 10 has a new black system theme across the Start menu, Taskbar, and Action Center. There is now support for AutoColor which pulls the primary color from your desktop background.
See also: Change colors in Windows | Microsoft Support
This tutorial will show you how to change the accent color for the Start menu, Start button, taskbar, title bars (build 10525), window borders, buttons, text, Settings, sign-in screen, and action center to any color you want in Windows 10.
Window borders are only 1 pixel wide, so they don't show your selected color very well. If you like, you can use the tutorial below to have wider window borders.
How to Use Aerolite Theme for Window Borders and Title Bars Color in Windows 10
User color settings for windows are saved in the keys located below in Reigstry Editor (regedit).
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors
and
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\Colors
The Start menu color for a user is stored in the StartColorMenu and AccentColorMenu DWORDs in the key located below in Registry Editor.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Accent
You will need to activate Windows before you can personalize your PC.
Folders in File Explorer will automatically refresh when you have both Automatically pick a color from my background and Desktop Slideshow turned on.
When both these options are turned on, the shell sends a refresh message to all File Explorer windows every time the wallpaper changes for the slideshow, causing folders to refresh the views. This can be an annoying issue. For example, if you're scrolling in a folder to only have the scroll bar refresh back to the top after a refresh.
EXAMPLE: Accent color for title bars, taskbar, windows borders, Start menu, and on sign-in screen
Here's How:
1 Do step 2 or step 3 below for how you would like to open Personalization.
2 Open Settings, click/tap on the Personalization icon, and go to step 4 below.
3 Right click or press and hold on your desktop, click/tap on Personalize, and go to step 4 below.
4 Do step 5 (choose color), step 6 (auto color), or step 7 (high contrast) below depending on what you would like to do and what theme you are using.
A) Click/tap on Colors on the left side. (see screenshots below)
B) Uncheck Automatically pick an accent color from my background on the right side.
C) Click/tap on a recent color, Windows color, or a Custom color you want to choose.
D) Under Show accent color on the following surfaces, check or uncheck Start, taskbar, and action center for what you want.
If you selected to use Light for Choose your color or Choose your default Windows mode, then the Start, taskbar, and action center setting will be grayed out.
E) Under Show accent color on the following surfaces, check or uncheck Title bars for what you want.
F) When finished, go to step 8 below.
This setting is stored using the DWORD value in the registry key below.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
AutoColorization DWORD
0 = Off
1 = On
A) Click/tap on Colors on the left side. (see screenshot below)
B) Check Automatically pick an accent color from my background on the right side.
C) Under Show accent color on the following surfaces, check or uncheck Start, taskbar, and action center for what you want.
D) Under Show accent color on the following surfaces, check or uncheck Title bars for what you want.
E) When finished, go to step 8 below.
A) Click/tap on Colors on the left side, and click/tap on the High contrast settings link at the bottom of the right side. (see screenshot below)
B) Click/tap on the color box of an item you want to change based on the currently selected high contrast theme. (see screenshot below)
C) Click/tap on a color you want to choose for the item. (see screenshot below)
D) Repeat steps 7B and 7C for any other high contrast items you want to change the color of.
E) When finished changing colors for items, click/tap on the Apply button. (see screenshot below)
F) Type a name you want for this new custom high contrast theme, and click/tap on Save. (see screenshot below)
G) This new custom high contrast theme will now be saved to be able to choose. Go to step 8 below.(see screenshot below)
8 When finished, you can close Settings if you like.
That's it,
Shawn
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