Solved Missing "Color and Appearance" Windows .. .

[Brink]

Oops. Sorry about that. Here you go: How to Access “Advanced Appearance Settings” Option and Change Font Size, Color in Windows 8? - Tweaking with Vishal

Yeah, I don't like reset or refresh eight, but when a feature you have is MIA for an unknown reason or tweak, there's not much more left that we haven't already tried.

Hopefully doing it manually in the registry may work for now.

 

[delicate]

it doesn't explain me how to change the submenu's grey color, i changed my theme to a high contrast to get a horrible black taskbar instead of the nice blue one, just to change submenus grey color. i tried to modify, in hkey current user, control panel, desktop, colors, the menu & menubar to 255 255 255 & it didn't work. i'll try the folder that contains clones too "magic microsoft windows 8 registry clones": hkey current user, control panel, colors .. .

 

[delicate]

ok, my method doesn't work.

 

[Brink]

Yeah, that's why I don't like the manual registry method. It's a real pain.

If you have a Windows 7 installation, then you could do what's at that link to make it easier by setting it in Advanced Appearance Settings and exporting the registry settings from Windows 7, then merge it into Windows 8.

 

[delicate]

[Resolved]

I imported win7s desktop settings to the win8s reg, it didn't work. anyways brink, i found a fix to microsoft windows 8's desktop appearance customization downgrade. it's called "Desktop Architect 2.11" a freeware of 2001 .. . it gives you a complete access to all desktop parts like in win98/XP .. . At the first start, you will have to provide the application the windows 8 theme's folder: C:\Windows\Resources\Themes folder Note that this appearance tweaking tool is more advanced than the actual windows 8 pro "Window Color and Appearance" window that doesn't even appear in my system.

 

[Brink]

I'm glad to hear that you found a 3rd party program that will do the trick for you. Thank you for posting back with this.

 

[DSperber]

I tried to get the "application background" (as it was called through Windows 7 in the advanced appearance settings dialog) to be black.

I went to HKCU\Control Panel\Colors and \Desktop\Colors and changed the "AppWorkspace" key value to "0 0 0" which is what shows in my Win7 setup for these... where I get black as I want. However the interior background for the two applications where this is relevant (ACDSee v5.0 and Adobe Photoshop v6.0) still remains what it currently was (which is kind of a lavendar).

So this approach to dealing with the vanished "advanced appearance settings" in Win8 isn't working for me.

Could this be because of the "theme" in effect from ASUS on this laptop? Could that be why AppWorkspace is effectively being ignored??

Can't believe it's because of the old versions of both products, since they pick up the black "application background" in Win7 and all earlier Windows versions just fine. But then I've never had a theme in effect until working on this ASUS laptop.

If it is the theme that's the culprit here, how would I investigate what must be the equivalent AppWorkspace setting for that theme? Presumably I could change it there, and hopefully that would accomplish my goal.

 

[Brink]

Hello DSperber, and welcome to Eight Forums.

By default, colors are not applied to those items unless you are using a high contrast theme. You would then be able to set colors for items like in step 7 of the tutorial below.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/6479-window-color-appearance-change-windows-8-a.html​

However, you might also see how the free program Desktop Architect 2.11 that delicate posted above may work for you.

 

[DSperber]

Well, after installing Desktop Architect and launching it, it announces that "this operating system is not supported, do you want to continue?" to which I replied NO.

So maybe this product is only usable with Win8 Pro (which is not what is installed on this laptop I'm guessing). It certainly says it doesn't want to be used for whatever version of Win8 I'm running.

Oh well... I'll just have to live with it. I'm not changing the appearance theme to one of the "high contrast" themes, as this is a friend's laptop that I'm just customizing.

 

[delicate]

i replied yes.. that means some windows aspects are not supported, 70% of colors r supported. i also chnged submenu & menu font type

 

[DSperber]

Gave it another try, this time replying YES.

And it did seem to install and run ok. But I didn't know what to respond to its questions about "default themes locations". I'm guessing it would have figured that out automatically in a "supported OS" like Win7. So I just ignored that questions.

Then, I figured out where to find the Application Background color item (in advanced appearance), and sure enough it had a value of "171 171 171" (lavendar) which was same value I'd already seen using REGEDIT, for the "AppWorkspace" item in HKCU\Control Panel\Colors and that I'd tried to change earlier to "0 0 0" (black) through REGEDIT but had no success.

It accepted my change, but I didn't know what to do next. How/where to "apply"? Whatever I did next seemed to prompt me to probably put it into my "default themes location" which I hadn't specified earlier. So I just saved it somewhere, honestly expecting it to simultaneously BE APPLIED. But it didn't seem to "apply", even though it did get saved where I put it.


I then got back into REGEDIT and the value I'd changed with Desktop Architect still showed the original "171 171 171" and the Application Background was still lavendar. Seemed like nothing was happening the way I wanted it to.

It then dawned on me that maybe I'd really just needed to restart (or perhaps just log off and back on again) in order to have picked up my very original change to "0 0 0" for AppWorkspace using REGEDIT in the first place!! Maybe it's only then that I really would have seen the effect of my change, and not "instantaneously".

So that's what I did. Used REGEDIT to change AppWorksace to the desired "0 0 0" in HKCU\Control Panel\Colors:

and then I restarted Windows.

And now... sure enough, my "application background" IS BLACK as I'd desired all along!

So, the tutorial pointed by Brink in the first post of this thread (which, by the way, I'd actually also found myself prior to coming here) is in fact CORRECT AND COMPLETE (although I wish the equivalance of the registry key of "AppWorkspace" to the old "application background" had been stated explicitly). What was missing was the need to then LOG OFF/ON or restart Windows, in order to then see the effect of whatever changes you've made actually take effect.

Ergo: Desktop Architect may actually do the same thing in a more intuitive (possibly for some) GUI way, but what's really happening here is a GUI-based interface to the same "advanced appearance" registry entries that REGEDIT is touching when you go to HKCU\Control Panel\Colors. Too bad MS has removed this dialog.

CASE CLOSED! Black "application background" now, and I'm happy.