Get colored title bars in Windows 10
Since Windows 10 build 10056, Microsoft has blocked colored titlebars for all opened windows. Many users find this change extremely frustrating because it doesn't make it clear whether the window is active or inactive. It is a major usability violation. Here is how to fix it and restore colored titlebars in Windows 10 easily.
Before we start, let me explain why window title bars are white in Windows 10. Inside the uDWM.dll file, there is a check which compares the theme file name to aero.msstyles. If it matches aero.msstyles, it ignores the color and sets it to white.
Here is a simple solution - just rename the msstyles file to something else which does not contain the "aero.msstyles" string. Here are step-by-step instructions to do just that.
- Go to the following folder:
2. Select the aero subfolder, press ctrl+c to copy it and then ctrl+v immediately to paste it. You will get the folder aero - Copy. Confirm the UAC request and press SKIP for all MSS files.
3. Now, rename the folder aero - Copy to "windows". Confirm the UAC request:
4. Inside the windows folder, rename the aero.msstyles to windows.msstyles. Confirm the UAC request
5. Inside the windows\en-US folder, rename the aero.msstyles.mui file to windows.msstyles.mui.
7. Rename it to windows.theme.
8. Open it with notepad:
9. Edit the [VisualStyles] section and replace the following line:
Path=%ResourceDir%\Themes\Aero\Aero.msstyles
with the following text:
Path=%ResourceDir%\Themes\windows\windows.msstyles
That's it. Many thanks to my friends Lucas and gus3300 for helping me with this trick.
You can download ready-to-use theme files and avoid doing steps above manually using this link:
10. Now, double click the windows.theme file and enjoy colored titlebars:
11. You can set any desired color from the Settings app:
That's it. Many thanks to my friends Lucas and gus3300 for helping me with this trick.
You can download ready-to-use theme files and avoid doing steps above manually using this link: