Windows 10: Non-transparent and thick window borders AND white text.

If I choose the Windows theme from Windows Default Themes or Windows Installed Themes, I get a think border on windows, but it's transparent.

I got the aerolite and aerolite (white-text) themes from Aerolite Theme - Install in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums. Both of these give me solid borders, but the text of my clock system icon is black. The white-text version still gives me black text.

I notice that the High Contrast themes give me thick colored borders and white text. I don't want to use these, but I mention this to give someone possibly a clue as to how to make things work.

The black text came with the windows update that I installed today (Sept 22).

So I'd like to see:

(1) a way to remove the window border transparency without affecting other properties,

(2) a way to set white text without affecting other properties,

or (3) posting a theme file that has colored borders and white text.

BTW, I wonder if the .msstyles files have something to do with this. I think I downloaded aero\aero.msstyles and aero\aerolite.msstyles in July, they are dated 7/16/16. But I saved an older version of these, dated 10/30/15. This was before I upgraded from Windows 7 to WIndows 10.

:)

 

Windows 10 how to get rid of thick colored borders!!!

thank you but this worked but only for chrome, everything else still has thick borders also how do i get the title bar back to white? thanks

 

Windows 10 windows' borders are too thin!!

It was not in Win 3.x because they had borders on resizable windows and non-resizable windows. The only difference was non-resizable borders did not have the little line to separate the corners.

Wrong. Resizable windows had a thick border. Non-resizable windows had no border (just a 1-pixel outline similar to Windows 10). For msg boxes that needed to call attention to themselves and did have a thick border, yes, the
visual cue was the corners were different (as you noted). That was the visual cue.





It was not in Win 9x because they had borders on resizable and non resizable windows and with its preponderance of grey, it was often hard to tell where border ended and the program began.

This is mostly true except resizable windows had a subtly thicker border (easily seen below) AND
UI standards called for them to have a chevron in the lower right corner
to indicate that they could be resized.

[Edit] Also, UI standards also called for resizable windows to be mostly white while non-resizable windows (a.k.a. dialog boxes) mostly grey (as in the picture below). While this may not have always been followed, it was rare (and odd) to see a resizable
window that was ALL grey... and if you did see one that was, you better bet that chevron was (or should have been) there in the bottom right.





It was not in XP but the default blue borders made it easier to tell the difference between the border and the program - but not between resizable and sizable ones.

Again, not true. Similar to 9x, resizable borders were thicker- although only by 1 pixel. And anyway, nobody would ever call WinXP a pinnacle of UI design. Despite XP's longevity, Luna is one of the most derided user interfaces in history.

[Edit] As you can see from the screenshot, resizable borders are 4 pixels wide, while static ones are 3. This might not sound like a big difference, but in practice it was very noticeable and worked decently well. Additionally, XP continues the use of using
the chevron on the bottom right to indicate resize.





As for XP, the same for the Aero twins - except both the resizable and non resizable borders were a simulated glass look.

I would agree that at this point it became almost impossible to tell the difference. Resizable borders were STILL 1-pixel wider than non-resizable ones, but aero glass transparency made it virtually impossible to tell the difference.

In any case, I am not for thick borders. I happen to like Windows 10's thin borders. My point is that I can see why some people are confused by the inconsistencies (that have been noted ad nauseam such as the top right click differences). I believe consistency
goes a long way in UI design. Others might disagree.

 

The problem is in the .msstyles files - aero.msstyles and aerolite.msstyles.
aero is used by most themes, and it has the transparent borders. aerolite has the solid borders but black text.
I've found a tool for editing .msstyles files, but no documentation about which of the resources controls the text color or solid border behavior. It's called msstylesEditor. It presents me with hundreds of names and subnames, and lists of properties/values. Lots of these resources are images, which the tool will show. Unfortunately, it has no print facility so I can't easily compare the aero and aerolite files with each other.

ResourceHacker presents a completely different set of names, and the values are all in hex, no further interpretation, and no print facility.

I would need to open both files in separate windows with either tool and go down the lists and see what's different.

I'd prefer if somebody who knows more about this stuff would fix the aerolite file and produce a white-text version that actually works.

Thank you.

 

Winaero Tweaker has a Aero Lite setting in that allows you to set it at Aerolite White text.

 

*Sad*Sad
I tried Winaero Tweaker's white text tweak, but it doesn't work. I still get black text. Something changed in the latest Windows update.

The only difference between the two themes installed by the Tweaker is that the white text version has added:

Code: [Control Panel\Colors] TitleText=255 255 255 InactiveTitleText=160 160 160[/quote] I think this used to work before the windows update.

 

BTW, I had saved an older version, dated 10/30/15, of aero\aerolite.msstyles. I tried using this file instead of the 7/16/16 version, and no difference in behavior. *Sad