Changing System Colors

Keywords:   system colors

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Question:

How do you change system colors?

Answer:

It is easy to write to the registry and update it to specify the system colors to be used on the next restart of Windows.

It is somewhat more complicated to change the system colors for the current session. The code below shows how to do both.

element_string = "ActiveTitle"; From registry dataitem name
element_offset = 2; Code from table below 
color_red      = 255; red color value 0 to 255
color_green    = 0; green color value 0 to 255
color_blue     = 0; blue color value 0 to 255
;--------------------------------------- 

; This code sets the colors for the next restart.  Easy
RegSetValue(@REGCURRENT, "Control Panel\Colors\[%element_string%]", "%color_red% %color_green% %color_blue%")
; End of Next Restart code. 


;This code sets the colors for the current session
elements_buf = binaryalloc(4)
values_buf = binaryalloc(4) 
BinaryPoke4(elements_buf, 0, element_offset)
BinaryPoke4(values_buf, 0, color_red | (color_green << 8) | (color_blue << 16))
DaDll=strcat(DirWindows(1),"USER32.DLL")
DllCall(DaDll, long:"SetSysColors", word:1, lpbinary:elements_buf, lpbinary:values_buf) 
BinaryFree(elements_buf)
BinaryFree(values_buf)
exit
;End of current session code exit
;;;;;
;Color offsets:
; 0  COLOR_SCROLLBAR
; 1  COLOR_BACKGROUND
; 2  COLOR_ACTIVECAPTION
; 3  COLOR_INACTIVECAPTION
; 4  COLOR_MENU
; 5  COLOR_WINDOW
; 6  COLOR_WINDOWFRAME
; 7  COLOR_MENUTEXT
; 8  COLOR_WINDOWTEXT
; 9  COLOR_CAPTIONTEXT
;10  COLOR_ACTIVEBORDER
;11  COLOR_INACTIVEBORDER
;12  COLOR_APPWORKSPACE
;13  COLOR_HIGHLIGHT
;14  COLOR_HIGHLIGHTTEXT
;15  COLOR_BTNFACE
;16  COLOR_BTNSHADOW
;17  COLOR_GRAYTEXT
;18  COLOR_BTNTEXT
;19  COLOR_INACTIVECAPTIONTEXT
;20  COLOR_BTNHIGHLIGHT
;21  COLOR_3DDKSHADOW
;22  COLOR_3DLIGHT
;23  COLOR_INFOTEXT
;24  COLOR_INFOBK

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Article ID:   W13209

Filename:   Change System Colors.txt