On Mon, 8/18/2025 4:58 PM, NY wrote:
I can't find a Windows 11 newsgroup so I'll ask here...
Is there a way of configuring the colours of specific parts of the screen, such as taskbar background colour and application background colour without changing to dark mode.
Everything seems to be geared up for Themes and Accent Colours where a change seems either to have no visible effect or else it changes far too much.
My mum has just got a Win 11 PC and wants Light theme (ie light coloured application backgrounds with dark text) but to have a dark (eg black or navy blue) taskbar.
Is there an idiot's guide to all the various controls under Settings | Personalisation which allow fine control of selected bits of the screen "furniture"?
Preferably in written form, to avoid me having to endure a jokey presentation in heavily accented "English" (I use the word advisedly!) in a Youtube video.
Google search terms (salt to taste) [ sites as in vistax64.com , sevenforums.com , eightforums.com, tenforums.com, elevenforum.com ]
site:elevenforum.com Windows 11 taskbar background colour and application background colour
It is one son of an ugly topic, with the File Explorer not following
how other applications get decorated. There are as many half recipes
as there are results. One person used ExplorerPatcher (and you know
that will have consequences at some point).
https://www.elevenforum.com/t/changing-color-of-taskbar.17963/
"It appears you are using light mode. There's a trick to get Windows
to have a dark taskbar when using light mode.
go to settings : personalization : colors
Make sure your chosen color is selected..
under 'choose your mode', change it to dark mode (this is temporary)
Change 'show accent color on start and taskbar' to ON and
change 'show accent color on title bar and windows borders' to ON
(if you want the chosen color on title bar and borders, Otherwise leave it OFF).
scroll back up to 'choose your mode' change it to CUSTOM
set 'choose your windows default mode' to DARK
set 'choose your app mode' to LIGHT
You may have to log-off before you see the result.
"
Some of the other threads I found, were hard to follow. The word "tutorial"
in a search, would get a summation web page by the site owner, on how
to do a particular thing (for the well known things).
You can also feed your question to CoPilot, but due to the flaky nature of
the combination of dark or light theme, and color selection, don't
expect this to be exactly easy or satisfying. I would experiment here...
but it would only screw up my colors :-) I've had some pretty hideous color combos here in the past by experimenting.
Paul
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