Windows 10 Inactive Title Bar Color
- Windows 10 Active Title Bar Color
- Windows 10 Inactive Title Bar Colors
- Windows 10 Change Inactive Title Bar Color
HKEYCURRENTUSERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsDWMIn the right pane, right-click on any empty space and select “New” and then “DWORD (32-bit) Value” from the popup menu and submenu.A new value is added and the name is highlighted, ready for you to assign a name to the value.Enter AccentColorInactive as the name, then double-click the name to edit its value.On the Edit dialog box, enter a for a color you want to use on the title bars on the inactive windows shown in the background on the desktop. You can get these from programs like or or from websites like. For our example, we’re going to make the inactive windows a dark gray (hex color code: 666666) and the active window (which you can also change in the Registry Editor) black (hex color code: 111111), as shown in the image at the beginning of this article.
You can choose any two colors you want, or make all the active and inactive title bars the same color.The value of the hexadecimal (hex) color code is entered in the format BBGGRR. Normally a hex color code uses the RRGGBB format, but this DWORD value uses BBGGRR instead. For example, if you want to use the hex color code A7708C (A7=Red, 70=Green, 8C=Blue), you would enter it as 8C70A7 in the AccentColorInactive value.Make sure “Hexadecimal” is selected under Base and then click “OK”.You can also change the color of the active window in the Registry Editor, although it’s easier to. If you want to change the color of the title bar on the active window, double-click on the AccentColor value. If you don’t see the AccentColor value in the list on the right, create a new DWORD value just like you did for the AccentColorInactivevalue.NOTE: The AccentColor value may not be there if you allow Windows to pick an accent color from the background. When you choose a specific color, the AccentColor value is created.Enter the hex color code for the color you want to use on the title bars of active windows in the “Value data” box. Again, make sure “Hexadecimal” is selected under Base and click “OK”.The colors of the title bars change immediately. Notice that the title bar of the Registry Editor turned gray while the Edit DWORD (32-bit) Value dialog box is active.Now the color of the title bar on the active window is black.
To close the Registry Editor, select “Exit” from the “File” menu.Now, our active window has a black title bar and our inactive windows all have gray title bars.If you don’t feel like diving into the Registry yourself, we’ve created a couple of downloadable registry hacks you can use. One hack sets the title bars of inactive windows to gray and active windows to black. You can change the hex color codes in the.reg file by opening the file in a text editor like Notepad and changing the values pointed to in the image below. Change only the last six digits, not the first two. The other hack restores the title bars to their default settings. Both hacks are included in the following ZIP file.
Windows 10 Active Title Bar Color
Double-click the one you want to use and click through the prompts. Remember, once you’ve applied the hacks you want, log out of your account and log back in or for the change take effect.These hacks are really just the applicable keys, stripped down to the values we talked about in this article and then exported to a.REG file. If you enjoy fiddling with the Registry, it’s worth taking the time to learn.
Image: iStockphoto.com/GladysGlezWhen Microsoft first released Windows 10, the only color for the title bar was white. Not only was that frustrating for the mere fact that we've been able to change the color of title bars ever since Windows 3.x, but having only white title bars made it difficult to distinguish between active and inactive windows.However, as I described in the article, which published in August 2015, Microsoft was at that time touting the return of title bar colors in Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 10525.
Windows 10 Inactive Title Bar Colors
More about Windows.In November 2015, Microsoft released a substantial update to the Windows 10 operating system, which, among other things, included the capability to set the color of the active title bar. I described the new feature in the article. Being able to once again set the color of active title bars made it easier to distinguish between active and inactive windows—but it would have been nice to set the color of inactive title bars as in the past.I recently learned that you can indeed set the color of inactive title bars using registry hacks. While the registry hacks work perfectly, I wasn't satisfied. So coming fresh off, I decided to create a new HTA for setting the color of the inactive title bar. SEE: The download. To ensure a safe download that won't raise the ire of your AV program, I changed the file extension for the HTA to txt.
Windows 10 Change Inactive Title Bar Color
To run this file, you'll have to rename the extension back to hta. The HTA relies on the ColorPalette.png file, so make sure both files are in the same folder when you run the HTA. CaveatBefore you can use the Inactive Title Bar Color Settings HTA, you must set an active title bar from the Colors tab of the Personalization setting screen. When you do, Windows 10 populates the appropriate registry key with the ancillary settings required to set the inactive title bar color.
If you do not first set an active title bar color, the Inactive Title Bar Color Settings HTA will not work. Setting the inactive title bar colorWhen you set the color of the active title bar from the Colors tab of the Personalization setting screen, you simply click on a tile in a color palette, as shown in Figure A. Replicating that type of UI in an HTA proved to be tricky, so I had to settle for a different approach. I was able to incorporate that same color palette; however, you must select the color from a scrolling list box. Figure A You set the color of the active window title bar by clicking the color tile in the palette.To configure the inactive title bar color, double-click the InactiveColor.hta file and you'll see the main screen, shown in Figure B. Each tile in the color palette has a number assigned to it, and just like the palette on the Colors tab of the Personalization setting screen, there are 48 color tiles.
Figure B The HTA lets you set the color of the inactive title bar by selecting a number in the scrolling list box.The adjacent scrolling list box shows all the row numbers. To choose a color for the inactive title bar, note the row number assigned to the color tile you want, select that number in the list box, and click OK. A prompt will appear in the foreground, thus making the initial HTA window inactive. You'll see the new inactive color choice, as shown in Figure C. As you can see in this example, I selected R74, which is a bright green, and the initial HTA window is now inactive and displaying that color.
Figure C When you click OK, the main window will become inactive, giving you a look at your color selection.If you like your new color choice, click Yes. Both the prompt and the main HTA window will close and the inactive title bar color will be enabled. If you don't like the color, click No and you'll be returned to the main HTA window, where you can select another color.If you decide you want to return the inactive title bar back to its original color, white, just click the Reset button.