Windows 10: Change Accent Color in Windows 10

How to: Change Accent Color in Windows 10

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.

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 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 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.


5. To Choose a Color if using a Windows Default Theme
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.







6. To Let Windows Automatically Pick a Color from your Background if using a Windows Default Theme
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.





7. To Choose a Color if High Contrast is Turned On
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


Related Tutorials

• How to Clear Recent Colors History in Windows 10
• How to Allow or Prevent Changing Color and Appearance in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off Color Filters to the Screen 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
• Turn On or Off Show Color on Start, Taskbar, and Action Center 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
• How to Change Title Bar Text Color in Windows 10
• How to Change Color of Inactive Title Bar in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off Start, Taskbar, and Action Center Transparency in Windows 10
• How to Enable Taskbar Clear Transparency with TranslucentTB in Windows 10
• How to Change your Theme in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove 'Personalize (classic)' context menu in Windows 10
• How to Customize Command Prompt Colors in Windows
• How to Change Window Text Color in Windows 10
• How to Change Highlighted Text Color in Windows 10
• How to Change Button Face Color in Windows 10
• How to Change Window Background Color in Windows 10
• How to Change Window Frame Color in Windows 10

:)

 

accent color

The accent color (primarily the red shades) are missing in window 10 and do not know why. Any suggestion how to get the original window 10 accent colors back? Thank you.

 

accent color

I have all the colors listed above. The shade of red is missing from above accent colors and is also missing from mine. I used to have the shade of red and like to get it back. I like to know how to update the driver of accent color in window 10.
ty

 

About Accent Color

Hello Sir,

I have Windows 8 Genuine version. In this august i have a update of windows 10, through reservation and i upgrade my windows 8.1 to 10. All features are best compare with 8 or 7. but here in my windows 10 some problem. Problem is like not to change accent
color from my background. I had try to graphics , updates of windows, etc all are done. but there is no change with accent color. I think, this is windows bug file software. so what should i do? for change color in accent backgound? Can i update windows 10
from your site (Download Windows 10) ? over my windows 10? give me suggestion what should i do?

 

Windows 10 Background Slideshow Accent Color Doesn't Work!

This is a similar if not exactly the same issue. The RTM version of Windows 10 had no issues related to automatic color accents. It all started for me when I just now upgraded to the Fall Update version 1511. I have included specs of my laptop in the bottom
along with graphics driver version, and others should follow suite.

The accent color changes to default blue under two independent conditions:

1) When the slideshow changes images, it reverts to the default blue accent color.

2) When the Personalization settings is opened. (see next paragraph)

I open the Personalization settings by right clicking on the desktop.

Then the following happens in quick succession, without user input:

1) The preview window shows the correct auto color where it should.

2) The preview window cycles to show the next image.

3) The accent color changes to blue in preview window.

4) The accent color changes for the desktop.

Steps taken to fix:

1) Turn Off/On automatic accent color, resets correct color but end result is same.

2) Turn Off automatic accent color, chose random color (green), turn On, correct auto color, end result is still same.

I have nothing against blue but a shade of orange bests matches my background and its quite annoying.

For trouble shooting, specs of laptop: (I think people should list specs)

Processor: i5-3210M

Graphics: Geforce GTX 660M

Graphics Driver: 361.43 (released 12/21/15)

 

ACCENT COLOR PROBLEM

I have problem with accent color in Windows 10 (10586 build).

When I set multiple images for background or slideshow, accent color on some of the pictures will not change. In an earlier version of Windows 10, the accent color was gray, now blue. To solve this problem,
I need to reset "explorer" from the Task Manager or switch (off/on) "Automatically pick an accent color from my background" in the Settings. But on change the background image, the problem reappears. I noticed this problem on many computers.