White text for app titlebar?

drfsupercenter

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So, I customized my Windows 8 to have a dark blue title bar, as you can see from the screenshot.

However, due to some stupidity, there's no way to change the text color, and it will always be black (even if you make the bar black!)

G7i53qY.png

I seem to recall some discussion about hacks to let you change it to white like Windows 7 would... now that 8.1 is out, has anyone gotten this to work? I can't install things on my RT 8.1 tablet so it would have to be a registry thing.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows
Save the theme for sharing, extract the *.theme file and edit it.
YourTheme.deskthemepack -> YourTheme.theme, add the following:
Code:
[Control Panel\Colors]
TitleText=255 255 255
InactiveTitleText=255 255 255

Look here for details:
http://www.eightforums.com/customiz...-ui-change-title-text-color-4.html#post147866

Important:
With the given settings above, the File Explorer titles cannot be changed only those of other programs if you use a standard Aero theme.
For the changes to take effect globally you'll need to use a high contrast theme.
Other examples:
http://www.eightforums.com/customization/25496-special-themes-aerolite-high-contrast-variations.html
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
So basically there's no way to do it using the standard Aero theme?

That seems like such a stupid "feature". Windows 7 automatically put a lighter color behind the window title so you were able to read it. 8 doesn't.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows
No for Aero, partially for AeroLite and yes for High Contrast.

Windows 7 used a shadow/highlight more like a light glow behind the text to make it visible. W8 doesn't have that anymore... such a pain on dark colors...

The last (good) resort it to bring the glow back by using the Windows 8 Release Preview Aero Theme that was the last one containing the glow feature:
Windows 8 Release Preview theme for Windows 8 RTM | Winaero
To give it a try, place the extracted files in "%windir%\Resources\Themes"

It's an official theme because it works without patching system files. I didn't tested it in Windows 8.1 yet but it works directly in 8.0.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
The only annoying thing about this is that now the taskbar is radically different looking than the title bar. With the normal theme they are the same color.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows
The only annoying thing about this is that now the taskbar is radically different looking than the title bar. With the normal theme they are the same color.

It matches with the glow part, but the transparency is mostly to blame here. There is no decent tweak available to disable the taskbar transparency when using Aero at the moment. For the rest it looks just like it was designed...

Both themes have their pluses and mins. So far for the official fixes, if you need to go further than this, use third-party customization themes but I'm not gonna cover those here.
You decide what to use next. :)

Regards,
Hopachi
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
I've used the RP theme on 8.1 for a day now so here is a 'review':

Hate to be the first to report some bad news about the RP Theme, but on Windows 8.1's taskbar, when you right click an item, to pin stuff or browse the recent file list (for instance in Explorer), the UI will look messy and display misplaced large icons and bad color backgrounds. Second thing: The Explorer window gets an expected title glow but the rest of programs (like music player, notepad...) doesn't so the title is still 'not-visible' black. That describes all I've seen so far.

I'm on x64 and maybe others get different results, maybe? But it's pretty much settled by now.
I'm not on the 8.1 machine to post a screenshot but the conclusion is that the RP theme isn't 100% compatible with Windows 8.1, it is fully compatible with 8.0 only.

Background info:

*Windows 8 RP Theme

->From 32bit RP ISO build 6.2.8400 or found on WinAero
-32bit msstyles version, runs on 32bit and 64bit Windows

->From 64bit RP ISO build 6.2.8400
-64bit msstyles version, runs only on 64bit Windows

Too bad... I believe 64bit or 32bit will not make any difference here so the theme has glitches on Windows 8.1.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    i5-3470 @ 3.2 GHz
    Memory
    8 GB Kingston DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti
    Browser
    Mozilla Firefox
    Antivirus
    Comodo
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