Windows 10: Change color of menubar and list header?

On Windows 10 the menubar and list header are white by default. I'd like to change them to a greyish color instead. I've tried using the SMACC tool, editing the registry, and editing my main .theme file, but nothing so far has changed these two colors. Maybe they're deed in the .msstyles file or a .dll file somewhere?

Btw, the list header I'm talking about is the topmost header row in any ListView control, which usually allows you to click on it to sort the list contents or change list column widths.

Any ideas on this?

Thanks

:)

 

Creators Update ruined my fonts

Winaero Tweaker didn't enlarged text in either Title bar or menus. It changed the color of the title bar to blue but even Windows personalization does that - and better. I'm wondering if there's a left-over font setting that's making these two items smaller.

Too small:

All title bars

File Explorer menu bar

Firefox menu bar, tabs

Firefox icons/arrows dropdown lists

Notetab menubar

Normal text:

Firefox URL box

Firefox search box (but not "suggestions")

Thunderbird menu bar, tabs

Notetab tabs

 

How do I change taskbar/folder title bar text colors? in Windows 10

Hello,

• Do you want to change the taskbar's color or the taskbar's text color?

If you want to change the taskbar's color, follow the steps below:

• Go to Settings and select Personalization.
• Select Color.
• Turn "Automatically pick an accent color from my background" Off and select the color which you wish to have.
• Turn "Show color on Start, taskbar, action center, and title bar" On.

If you want to change the taskbar's text color, follow the steps below:

• Go to Settings and select Personalization.
• Select Color and click on High contrast settings.
• Now select the color of your wish and Apply.

I hope this helps you. If you have any further queries, feel free to contact us. We will be happy to help you.



Thank you.

 

Hi Fin, welcome to Ten Forums. Settings > Personation > Color :





Turn the switch on below the colors to show on start, Taskbar action center and Title bar. Might not be exactly what you are after, hope it helps.

 

Thanks, I've tried that already, but it only adjusts the titlebar, taskbar, and start menu.

I'm willing to use Resource Hacker if that's what it takes!

 

You'll have to do some digging into msstylesheets, lots of work!

I realize High Contrast themes don't look the greatest, but, you can hit pretty close to center with them:

 

Lol, yes, I'd say those don't look the greatest, but they do have non-white menubar and list headers. I did try them for fun, and it shows that what I want to do is technically possible, somehow.

The default Windows 10 Aero theme is pretty decent, with just a handful of colors that need changing. And that's my goal. So far I've found out how to set custom colors for the active and inactive titlebars, and a different custom color for the taskbar and start menu, and also the selected item color (that intense blue was too much). Just two more colors to go and Win10 will ally be easygoing for my eyes.

 

I experimented some more with a high contrast theme, and plugged in all the colors I could into it. It did change the menubar and list header to a better color, but it seems that too many appearance settings are not deed by the .theme file, and it ended up looking not as good as the aero default theme. And firefox is apparently aware of the high contrast theme being used, since it changes how it renders web pages to match. It was worth a try, but doesn't look to be a way to do what I want with my colors.

 

Welcome to the Ten Forums

I would recommend that you start a new custom theme from scratch so you do not corrupt the original look at Post #38 Here it will show you how, it is for Windows 7 but it will work for Windows 10 also.
When you get to step #5 you will need it to point to the correct location (that will be the next step I will show you on how to install it, it will make sense then)
In creating the new theme in step #5 should look like this below with Your Theme Name in the bold areas.
%ResourceDir%\Themes\aero\aerolite.msstyles\YOUR THEME NAME\YOUR THEME NAME.msstyles

Look at post #50 shows how to install a theme.

How to get rid of the line under the taskbar icons ? - Page 5 - Windows 10 Forums


Now for the information you need it's in the .msstyles.

The menu bar background is image number 749

The header is image numbers 603, 602
Image number 603 has 12 different states each one is 5 pixels by 24 pixels, each state is shown in the image below.

Everything you need to install a custom theme is included in the zip folder below.

If you need any help let me know.

Jerry

 

Thanks for all the great info Jerry!

I've worked on this a while today, but I may be stuck for now. It looks like UltraUXThemePatcher 3.0.5 (the latest version) is not compatible with my version of Windows 10 v1511 (build 10586) as the developer says on his website. I also tried UniversalThemePatcher but it wouldn't let me patch anything at all.

If I were to directly edit images in the aero.msstyles file using Resource Hacker, would those style changes work without using the patch tools? Btw, I have multiple types of backups of my system, so I'm prepared for some direct editing of system files.

 

Hi Fin:
I am using the one that I provided in the zip folder which is UltraUXThemePatcher 3.0.4 not 3.0.5 on two different installs it works perfectly, and both are 1511 build 10586.

If you edit the original aero.msstyles you would still need to do the patch because it would lose its Windows signature.

Jerry

 

Success! Once I used the Mr. GRiM method for placing the theme files and folders then they ally became active.

I needed to modify some other image numbers than the ones you suggested, maybe because I'm using a different dpi setting?

Here are the images I modified, along with some that I didn't end up needing:

#572 for list header background
#602 for ? (wasn't active, not sure what it does)
#603 for list header background (wasn't active, but I modified it just in case)
#749 for toolbar background
#1197 for menubar background

Thanks for your help on this Jerry! Now I can ally get Windows looking more how I'd like it.

A sample of my progress so far. Clean and simple, but not all-white like the default theme is. There needs to be some contrast to make things easier for your eye to d.

 

You're welcome

Yes #572 is for Task manager list header.
But #603 and #602 are for windows explorer list headers.

And #749 is for menubar background in Control panel.

Sorry I forget there are 2 headers and menubars.

Good job finding the images you needed.

Jerry

 

A quick update, in case this might help other people that run into an issue I had.

I had to uninstall UltraUXThemePatcher, due to its patch-work being incompatible with an important app that I use called VirtualBox. Happily it appears that I don't need UltraUXThemePatcher for my theme mods to continue working, since I have UxStyle installed and active. I verified, and there are no patched theme DLLs in my System32 or SysWOW64 folders any more.

VirtualBox allows you to run a "virtual pc" within Windows, and this lets me run certain older apps on a virtual Windows XP computer while using Windows 10. VirtualBox has a security feature that verifies the signature status of various essential Windows DLL files, and it will fail to run any of your virtual machines if it ds Windows DLL files that are not signed by Microsoft. You have to inspect its VBoxHardening.log in order to d out what the problem is. It turns out, when UltraUXThemePatcher patches your theme DLL files it removes the official Microsoft-signed status from those files.

 

Thank you for the update it may help others for sure.

Jerry