Colored Title Bar Theme for Windows 10

By Yusuf M.
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Yusuf M. Veteran

Posted
  • Author
  • Veteran
Posted

What issues does the theme applied with Winaero Tweaker have?

cWgpUp1.png

The window in the background has a greyish background behind the text. That background is supposed to extend to the entire title bar. Like so:

vuLu4Iw.png

  • link6155 and Jose_49
  • Like 2
Grand Master

MS Bob 11

Posted
Posted (edited)

The window in the background has a greyish background behind the text. That background is supposed to extend to the entire title bar.

Oh right! Unfortunate that it requires UXStyle. The Aero Lite-based theme doesn't require UXStyle since it's a mod of the Server 2012 theme (signed by MS) but that one makes the taskbar dark with black text labels. This theme is better.

Grand Master

Jose_49

Posted
Posted

Thanks a lot! :D

I ended up downloading Malwarebytes, and scanning my system. Even after uninstalling the crappy Inmtoo sht it leaved some registry residues.

And the best part is that Windows ended regenerating the old files!!!

 

Installed the uxstyle from github and no problems so far!!!

Grand Master

Yusuf M. Veteran

Posted
  • Author
  • Veteran
Posted

Oh right! Unfortunate that it requires UXStyle. The Aero Lite-based theme doesn't require UXStyle since it's a mod of the Server 2012 theme (signed by MS) but that one makes the taskbar dark with black text labels. This theme is better.

I actually wanted to use the Aero Lite them after seeing the leaked Windows Server 2016 screenshots. It turns out that even the Aero Lite theme has bugs. Title bar text in a window that's in the background looks weird. Also, the borders for windows are inconsistent. Explorer and applications use thick borders while dialog windows and folder properties use thin borders. This theme is definitely better.

Finally a proper theme with colored titlebars! Was nearly ready to go make one myself! Thanks for sharing! :).

Is there a guide out there on how to make your own Windows theme? I'm interested in making one for myself.

Grand Master

Jamushroom Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted (edited)

Is there a guide out there on how to make your own Windows theme? I'm interested in making one for myself.

 

It's been awhile since I've made my own Windows themes. So I was about to do some research before starting my own colored titlebar theme. When I made Visual Styles for Windows XP I used Ave's StyleBuilder, Reshacker, MsStyler and Notepad. There wasn't a tutorial at the time so I had to figure those apps out myself and got help from em3/tornado5 who made the Luna Elements themes.

Edited by Jeroen S.
Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted

I seem to remember the earliest Win10 betas having the title bar color match the border and taskbar accent colors. Makes me wonder if this will become a native feature of Redstone. It was probably the most wanted feature if you go by Feedback submission.

Grand Master

Yusuf M. Veteran

Posted
  • Author
  • Veteran
Posted

 

It's been awhile since I've made my own Windows themes. So I was about to do some research before starting my own colored titlebar theme. When I made Visual Styles for Windows XP I used Ave's StyleBuilder, Reshacker, MsStyler and Notepad. There wasn't a tutorial at the time so I had to figure those apps out myself and got help from em3/tornado5 who made the Luna Elements themes.

Ah, I see. I'll check it out then to see if it's worth diving into.

I love the theme except one small thing.  The border color is not the same as the title bar.  It looks much cleaner when it blends in perfectly.

you can see how it does it here with the basic aero tweaker one

fgdgfd.jpg

That does look nice but I think Windows 8's theme also had a border that was slightly darker than the title bar.

rtJJYww.gif

I seem to remember the earliest Win10 betas having the title bar color match the border and taskbar accent colors. Makes me wonder if this will become a native feature of Redstone. It was probably the most wanted feature if you go by Feedback submission.

Yeah. It went from a Windows 8 theme to something that resembles this theme. I wonder if those themes are compatible with the RTM build without having to use UxStyle.

In your opinion.

I'm glad to see users providing these sorts of things to offer choice to the user. (Y) (Even if some are sneaking adware into it :/)

UxStyle doesn't have adware. I removed the link to the UxTheme Patcher because it could cause problems with system stability down the line. And the installer uses tricks to try to fool you into installing adware.

Grand Master

Jamushroom Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Ah, I see. I'll check it out then to see if it's worth diving into.

 

I managed to use Resource Hacker to edit the the caption buttons for the white theme a little bit. Back when I made visual styles I also used Resource Hacker. Though, since visual styles are made with a 'stream' image (most Window elements in 1 image), I had some trouble at first. This was because I was editing the wrong image, until I saw the stream folder and thought 'Do'h!'.

Either way, I extracted the image, edited in Photoshop and then replaced the image with the new one in Resource Hacker. Fairly simple and just like it was done with Windows XP visual styles.

What I changed about the caption buttons is that I made the blue ones a bit brighter. Also going to change the 'pressed' state of the close button so that it gets brighter when pressed. That way it'll be consistent with the other buttons.

Grand Master

Michael Scrip

Posted
Posted

Thank you... it worked great.

But why do we have to download stuff from GitHub and DeviantArt just to change Windows title bar colors?

Grand Master

Steven P. Administrators

Posted
  • Administrators
Posted

Thank you... it worked great.

But why do we have to download stuff from GitHub and DeviantArt just to change Windows title bar colors?

You don't, this theme created by someone changes more than just title bar colors.

Grand Master

Michael Scrip

Posted
Posted

You don't, this theme created by someone changes more than just title bar colors.

Ok... I couldn't figure out how to change title bar colors in Windows 10.

They are white and there is no way to change them.

Older versions of windows let you assign colors to various windows elements.

Has this been taken away in Windows 10?

Grand Master

Michael Scrip

Posted
Posted

@Michael Scrip All Settings > Personalization > Colors, but the settings are limited, hence the reason for this custom theme :)

And that's the reason I asked why Microsoft would limit something as simple as colors in such a way :)

Grand Master

Jamushroom Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

They limited it so that native apps look like modern apps. I think they also did it to prevent bugs from happening. 1 visual style can only have 1 set of options for the fonts and 1 set of images for the titlebar buttons. Some colors don't go well with black text+buttons, and some don't go well with white text+buttons. So I reckon that they decided to go for white and a colored line around it is to prevent that issue from happening.

Grand Master

Michael Scrip

Posted
Posted

They limited it so that native apps look like modern apps. I think they also did it to prevent bugs from happening. 1 visual style can only have 1 set of options for the fonts and 1 set of images for the titlebar buttons. Some colors don't go well with black text+buttons, and some don't go well with white text+buttons. So I reckon that they decided to go for white and a colored line around it is to prevent that issue from happening.

Gotcha... thanks for the explanation.  I am coming from Windows 7... so I was a little confused!

It's weird that something so simple now needs articles written about it.   If you Google "windows 10 title bar color" you will see tons.

But I'm glad I got it to work.

Grand Master

Jamushroom Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Gotcha... thanks for the explanation.  I am coming from Windows 7... so I was a little confused!

It's weird that something so simple now needs articles written about it.   If you Google "windows 10 title bar color" you will see tons.

But I'm glad I got it to work.

Yeah, Windows 7's default theme didn't have such issues. People just like to have a colorful UI, haha :p At least I know I do.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing