Windows 10: Create Color and Appearance shortcut in Windows 10

How to: Create Color and Appearance shortcut in Windows 10

How to Create a Color and Appearance Shortcut in Windows 10


Information 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.

By default, you can choose a color for your Start menu accents, Start button, taskbar, buttons, text, Settings accents, sign-in screen accents, and Action Center accents in the Settings app now.

The old Color and Appearance Control Panel will also let you change the color intensity and includes a color mixer to let you have a wider choice of colors to select from than you can in Settings.

This tutorial will show you how to download or create a Color and Appearance shortcut that opens to the old Control Panel method to change colors for your account in Windows 10.



Note Changing the color in Color and Appearance will no longer affect the color of window borders.

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 color you selected.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Download a Color and Appearance Shortcut
• Option Two: To Manually Create a Color and Appearance Shortcut

EXAMPLE: Color and Appearance in Control Panel and Colors in Settings












OPTION ONE [/i] To Download a Color and Appearance Shortcut
1. Click/tap on the Download button below to download the .zip file below you want.
Color_and_Appearance_shortcut.zip

Download

OR

Colors_in_Settings_shortcut.zip

Download
2. Save the .zip file to your desktop.

3. Unblock the .zip file.

4. Open the .zip file, and extract (drag and drop) the shortcut to your desktop.

5. If you like, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to, or move this shortcut to where you like for easy use.

6. When finished, you can delete the downloaded .zip file if you like.





OPTION TWO [/i] To Manually Create a Color and Appearance Shortcut
1. Right click or press and hold on an empty area on your desktop, and click/tap on New and Shortcut.

2. Copy and paste the location below you want to use into the location area, and click/tap on Next. (see screenshot below)
(Control Panel)
*Arrow explorer shell:::{ED834ED6-4B5A-4bfe-8F11-A626DCB6A921} -Microsoft.Personalization\pageColorization

OR

(Settings)
*Arrow explorer ms-settings:colors




3. Type Color and Appearance for the name, and click/tap on the Finish button. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: You could name this shortcut anything you would like though.



4. Right click or press and hold on the new Color and Appearance shortcut, and click/tap on Properties.

5. Click/tap on the Shortcut tab, and click/tap on the Change Icon button. (see screenshot below)



6. In the line under "Look for icons in this file", copy and paste the location below, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow %SystemRoot%\System32\imageres.dll




7. Select the icon highlighted in blue above, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot above)
NOTE: You could use any icon that you would like instead though.

8. Click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below step 5)

9. If you like, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to, or move this shortcut to where you like for easy use.



That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• Change Color of Start Menu, Taskbar, and Action Center in Windows 10
• How to Allow or Prevent Changing Color and Appearance in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off Show Color on Title Bar in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off Show Color Only On Taskbar in Windows 10
• How to Use Aerolite Theme for Window Borders and Title Bars Color in Windows 10
• Turn On or Off Show Color on Title bars, Start, Taskbar, and Action Center in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off Start, Taskbar, and Action Center Transparency in Windows 10
• How to Create a 'Theme Settings' Shortcut in Windows 10

:)

 

How to change the pictures in Windows 10 Desktop Themes?

You can create a desktop shortcut for that. Or add it to Control Panel using a registry edit. See How to Add Classic Desktop
Background and Colors Applets to Windows 10 Control Panel?

 

Window color and appearance

When you right click Desktop, then click Personalize, it opens a window which has a preview pane on the right. The upper right has a box which says 'Sample Text'. It used to be 'Window Text' in earlier versions. How do you change the font color of this
text in Windows 10? Is there a hidden shortcut to get the old Window Color and Appearance menu in Control Panel?

 

Hopefully we'll be able to change the color of window borders in a GUI in a future build. *Smile

 

Hi there

Thanks -- this does make the whole thing much more "user friendly". - I'm also testing various systems so it's nice - especially when you've got a load of monitors - to have unique colours for each system. !!!

Incidentally THEMES still work too - although it's hidden in the Personalize options -just right mouse click anywhere on the desktop and choose personalize -- the themes choice will appear and you can then use your old themes (or new ones). Most of the old options still work. Some people thought that THEMES were no longer supported --not true for now.

Also if you simply want to alter the ICON sizes on the desktop without changing anything else simply press CTRL and turn the scroll button on the mouse --that's been working since I think VISTA days.

If you want to create your OWN Icons here's a link to the last FREE version of ICOFX - works a treat.

IcoFX



Cheers
jimbo

 

Is there a way to get the Win 8.1 color options for Solid Colors?
Win 10 is very limited in color and stuck with those when using slideshow smaller photos.

Like this shortcut here but for this option:

 

Hello Niv, *Smile

If you like, you could use the built-in one for Windows 10 below. It's pretty similar to what you posted. However, you would need to use Color and Appearance if you wanted to customize the color more.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...dows-10-a.html

 

Hi *Smile

I am not after the accent colors.
It is the Background Solid Colors I want to change to something of my own.

The Windows 10 only allow a few selected colors.
The link to Color And appearance only change accent color and not background color.

So I am looking for a link that takes you to the old "Desktop Background", kinda like the color & appearance one.
I need to pick my own color using the pallet for background since I use smaller photos in slideshow. The solid color I pick is the one I get as background for the rest of the desk.

Edit: Finally found what I was looking for, w10 already gave me grey hairs from all the tweaks to make it ok for me *Smile


It brings back the entire personlization menu from older win, so I can change my solid color to anything I want.

Now I only need to find a way to change the grey menu when rightclicking apps in taskbar, want the old one back. Then I am happy after 2 days of doing nothing but finding how to change things *Smile

 

@Niv,

I see. You might like the context menu below then. It includes the old desktop background settings. *Smile

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/6...dows-10-a.html

 

Thank you *Smile
That brings back everything with 1 click. Perfect.

 

This downloaded shotcut does not work after TH2 update. Or is it just by me there is a problem?

Well, not quite right. The shortcut IS working, but the colormixer is not working with the sliders.
Anybody know where in reg. database to see and change colors for titlebars?

 

Hello Burgurne, *Smile

It's fully working for me in TH2. Are you sliding them all the way over from one side to the other to see if they work?

Do you have any 3rd party custom theme program installed that could be overriding it?

 

No, I do not have any 3rd party theme. I am trying to change the default Windows Theme, and if I just pick one of the preselected colors it works allright, but when I try the sliders here is what happens:

Color intensity: absolute nothing happens when moving this slider
Hue: It is working allright
Saturation: Nothing happens except when moving to far left, then the color is changed to clear blue
Brightness: Nothing happens except when moving to far left, then the color is changed to clear blue

Any idea to how I get this function back?

 

I'm afraid that's how it works now.

The saturation and brightness levels really don't have any affect anymore unless you go to the extreme and move the level all the way to one side or the other. *Sad

 

Oh, Okay. From your answer in #12:
"It's fully working for me in TH2" I thought it worked like before, when saturation and brightness worked "fully".

I guess we have a different perception of what "fully working" means *Wink