Turn On or Off Show Color on Start, Taskbar, and Action Center in Windows 10
Windows 10 includes 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. You can change the color of Start, taskbar, title bars (build 10525), and Action Center.
Starting with Windows 10 build 17093, the People flyout will now use your accent color when “Show accent color” for Start, taskbar, and action center is selected in Color Settings.
If you are using a high contrast theme, then you will not be able to turn on or off to show color on taskbar and Start menu since it will be disabled.
If you turn off show color on Start, taskbar, and action center, your Start menu, taskbar, and action center background will have a black color.
If you turn on show color on Start, taskbar, and action center will have the color you selected.
This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off to show accent color on Start, taskbar, and action center for your account in Windows 10.
Starting with Windows 10 build 19042.421 (20H2) and Windows 10 build 20161, Microsoft is freshening up the Start menu with a more streamlined design that removes the solid color backplates behind the logos in the apps list and applies a uniform, partially transparent background to the tiles.
This refined Start design looks great in both dark and light theme, but if you’re looking for a splash of color, first make sure to turn on Windows dark theme and then toggle “Show accent color on the following surfaces” for “Start, taskbar, and action center”.
Contents
- Option One: Turn On or Off Show Color on your Start, Taskbar, and Action Center in Settings
- Option Two: Turn On or Off Show Color on your Start, Taskbar, and Action Center using a BAT file
EXAMPLE: Show Color on Start, Taskbar, and Action Center turned On and Off
1 Open Settings, and click/tap on the Personalization icon.
2 Click/tap on Colors on the left side, and check (on) or uncheck (off - default) Start, taskbar, and action center under Show accent color on the following surfaces on the right side for what you want. (see screenshot below)
If you selected to use Light instead of Custom or Dark for Choose your color or Light instead of Dark for Choose your default Windows mode, then the Start, taskbar, and action center setting will be grayed out.
3 When finished, you can close Settings if you like.
4 If you turned on show color on Start, taskbar, and action center, then you can now change the color to what you like.
The downloadable .bat files below will modify the DWORD values in the registry key below.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize
ColorPrevalence DWORD
0 = Turn off show color on Start, taskbar, and action center
1 = Turn on show color on Start, taskbar, and action center
1 Do step 2 (on) or step 3 (off) below for what you would like to do.
This .bat file will not work if you selected to use Light instead of Custom or Dark for Choose your color or Light instead of Dark for Choose your default Windows mode.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 4 below.
Turn_On_Show_Color_on_Start_taskbar_action-center.bat
Download
This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 4 below.
Turn_Off_Show_Color_on_Start_taskbar_action-center.bat
Download
4 Save the .bat file to your desktop, and run the .bat file.
5 If prompted, click/tap on Run to approve.
If you like, you can unblock the .bat file to stop getting the Run prompt.
6 You will now notice your screen flicker and a command prompt quickly open and close as explorer is restarted to apply the registry changes.
7 When finished, you can delete the downloaded .bat file if you like.
8 If you turned on show color on Start, taskbar, and action center, then you can now change the color to what you like.
That's it,
Shawn
Related Tutorials
- How to Allow or Prevent Changing Color and Appearance in Windows 10
- How to Turn On or Off Show Accent Color on Title Bars and Borders in Windows 10
- How to Turn On or Off Show Color Only On Taskbar in Windows 10
- Change Color of Start Menu, Taskbar, Action Center, and Title Bar in Windows 10
- How to Use Aerolite Theme for Window Borders and Title Bars Color in Windows 10
- How to Create a 'Color and Appearance' Shortcut in Windows 10
- How to Turn On or Off Start, Taskbar, and Action Center Transparency in Windows 10
- How to Change Title Bar Text Color in Windows 10
- How to Change Color of Inactive Title Bar in Windows 10
- How to Change Color of Cortana Search Box to White in Windows 10
- How to Add Color and Appearance to Control Panel in Windows
Turn On or Off Start, Taskbar, and Action Center Color in Windows 10
-
New #1
I am having problems with this. I ran the bat file to turn on colors. My start button won't click now. Also, when I attempt to open Personalize from the desktop context menu, I get a message that says "This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Please install a program or, if one is already installed, create an association in the Default Programs control panel." I was just in Personalize before running the bat.
-
New #2
Hello Mystik, and welcome to Ten Forums. :)
Sounds like you may have some other issue at hand since the .bat file only changes what's in the note box, which is the same as what OPTION ONE does.
As a test, restart the computer to see if it may just be a glitch.
If it doesn't help, then download and merge the .reg file below to see if it may. It will restore the default registry entries for the "Personalize" desktop context menu.
Personalize.reg
Code:Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\Personalize] @=hex(2):40,00,25,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,72,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,\ 00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,74,00,\ 68,00,65,00,6d,00,65,00,63,00,70,00,6c,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,2c,00,2d,\ 00,31,00,30,00,00,00 "HideInSafeMode"="" "Icon"=hex(2):25,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,72,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,\ 00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,74,00,\ 68,00,65,00,6d,00,65,00,63,00,70,00,6c,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,2c,00,2d,\ 00,31,00,00,00 "Position"="Bottom" "SettingsURI"="ms-settings:personalization" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\Personalize\command] "DelegateExecute"="{556FF0D6-A1EE-49E5-9FA4-90AE116AD744}"
-
New #3
Thank you for the welcome...and apologize for the alarm there. The restart seems to have fixed it. It was quite weird, though...I didn't seem to have any permissions suddenly before the reboot. I couldn't even save a document to the normal folder.
-
New #4
No worries. I always want to hear about any issues to see what was wrong so that it can be corrected or help others. :)
-
New #5
:)
Do you happen to know how to get the other colors to work? For example, I tried changing the ActiveTitle to 19 35 212 and InactiveTitle to 117 118 120...just some example darker colors...but it did not take effect. I did reboot again, just in case it would not change until that. TIA if any info.
-
New #6
You would need to use a high contrast theme to be able to change those like in step 7 below. :)
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...dows-10-a.html
-
New #7
Bah. Was hoping there was a better way. I did see that before. Oh well. :) I'll stick with the other for now.
-
-
New #9
RegKey is wrong
WRONG
The .bat files below are for changing the registry key and value below.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize
RIGHT
The .bat files below are for changing the registry key and value below.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize
Turn On or Off Start, Taskbar, and Action Center Color in Windows 10
Turn On or Off Show Color on Start, Taskbar, and Action Center in Windows 10Published by Shawn BrinkCategory: Customization
25 Jul 2020
Quote
Related Discussions
