This means Redstone 4 and Redstone 5 will continue to see Fluent Design improvements.
The Fall Creators Update is technically the second step in that journey, with the first step being the Creators Update that was released in early 2017. Microsoft was very clear that its new design language is a journey that will take several releases to fully realize. The implementations of Fluent Design began with the Fall Creators Update, but we're far from it being complete. Hopefully Microsoft can get around to unifying the shades of dark soon. It's still not perfect, with lots of inbox apps using their own shades of dark, making things feel inconsistent. In regards to dark mode, Microsoft is finally getting around to adding a dark mode to the File Explore and context menus, meaning dark mode is finally a lot more consistent when enabled. Light mode still features a dark Start, Taskbar and Action Center, which look out of place in light mode.
By default, Microsoft sets "light" as the default mode for Windows 10, which is interesting because Microsoft's light mode for Windows 10 is inconsistent. Or, if we’re lucky, they may add more theme options that don’t require this hidden trick.Dark and light modes within Windows 10 aren't strictly part of the Fluent Design System, however, they are big enough design choices that it's worth mentioning here. As Microsoft is committed to updating Windows 10 more regularly than previous versions of Windows, it’s possible they may change the way this works in the future. This process was tested on the final version of Windows 10 - build 10240. Rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL “Show color mixer” option here will let you pick any color you want for your window title bars. Copy-and-paste the following line into the Run dialog and run the command: To access this hidden control panel, press Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog. However, you can still access it - for now. This desktop control panel has been completely hidden in Windows 10. This list is still a bit limited compared to the Color and Appearance options in Windows 8.1, which allowed you to select any color you liked. Disable the “Automatically pick an accent color from my background” option and you’ll see a list of different colors you can use. Right-click the desktop and select Personalize, or open the Settings app and select Personalization to find these options.
Windows will switch to the color.theme file and your window titlebars will immediately become colored.Īs on Windows 8, Windows automatically chooses an “accent color” from your desktop background by default. You now have a theme that can use colored window title bars.ĭouble-click the color.theme file to activate your new theme.
Agree to the UAC prompt when you’re done. Go back to the C:\Windows\Resources\Themes folder and press Ctrl + V to paste it here. Select the color.theme file and press Ctrl + X to cut it. Save your changes and close Notepad afterwards. Replace it with Path=%ResourceDir%\Themes\color\color.msstyles. Scroll down in the file and locate the line under reading Path=%ResourceDir%\Themes\Aero\Aero.msstyles. Right-click the color.theme file, point to Open With, select Choose another app, and open it with Notepad. Rename the new aero.theme file to color.theme. Switch over to your desktop and press Ctrl + V to paste a copy of the file there. Select it and copy it by pressing Ctrl + C. Go back to the main Themes folder and you’ll see a file named aero.theme. So, all you have to do is modify the default Windows theme file to not contain the name “aero.msstyles”. If it matches, Windows ignores the color specified in the theme file and sets the color to white.
In the uDWM.dll theme file in Windows, there’s code that looks at the current theme file name and compares it to “aero.msstyles” - the default theme file. Microsoft chose to force white title bars in an odd way. Disable the “Automatically pick an accent color from my background” option here and you’ll be able to select any color you like from the Colors screen. Now, you can simply open the Settings app, navigate to Personalization > Colors, and activate the “Show color on Start, taskbar, action center, and title bar” option.īy default, it will automatically select a color based on your desktop background. Windows 10’s first big update added an official way to do this.
Thankfully, the below steps are no longer necessary. RELATED: What's New in Windows 10's First Big November Update Update: Windows 10’s First Big Update Added This Option