Like 10 but that white background!

OK upgrade Install of 10 went kind of OK but I do hate the white background in explorer.

I've seen others hate this as well.

Any fixes as yet?

I'd like to know as well. I see WindowBlinds is no longer working with Win10. Explorer background is blinding.

There is a free tool called winaero that lets you change the color of the title bars among other things.

There is a free tool called winaero that lets you change the color of the title bars among other things.

Thanks that looks good but I'm talking about the white background. I get eye floaters and these show up more on white

I done feedback to MS on this and maybe others should if they feel the same

Hi, Two suggestions for you, taken from Win 8 when MS so helpfully did away with the settings dialogue that allowed control of these things which were available in Win 7. Agreed, MS blindly ignores the issue of eyestrain and people who hate white backgrounds- there have surely been enough comments. When will they take note?

1. Background colour:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelColors]
"Window"="250 250 177"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktopColors]
"Window"="250 250 177"

will set the background colour in many (but not all- in particular explorer and some system dialogues).
(Obviously you can change the colour params to suit yourself).

2. Now replace explorer as far as you can with, say, XYplorer or one of the many other file managers that lets you set colours as you choose.

That's what I did in 8, and it works in 10.

Here's wordpad, for example (note the title bar transparency blur- Aeroglass experimental. (Non-focus colour- foreground is set to be derived from the current wallpaper). This doesn't yet work as well as it did in Win 8- in particular the minimise-quit controls aren't clearly visible.

Thanks. I tried XYplorer but it's not free and I can't see anyway of adjusting the background colour in it anyway.

I also don't understand reg key hacks and don't really wish to do that.

Hi, then you're stuck, except for substituting for explorer, for example. Hmm, I suppose you could put a coloured piece of plastic over your screen....

As regards Xyplorer, if you're impecunious or not lucky enough to get the occasional freebie license, a little initiative suggests searching for 'free alternatives to explorer'

For example
Five free replacements for Windows Explorer - TechRepublic

You may wish to spend a little time finding more recent reviews- there are many.

Here's XYPlorer with its colour configuration window overlapping XYplorer- all colours are its own, nothing to do with the registry mod. (Which once done, you can save with your theme, by the way).



That's in Win 10, with drop shadows, and a theme applied, and- oh, you can see the transparency from Aeroglass (experimental).

Thanks that looks good but I'm talking about the white background. I get eye floaters and these show up more on white

I done feedback to MS on this and maybe others should if they feel the same

The white background is AWFUL to say the least. I am seeking an alternative.

Right now I am working with FreeCommander XE. It looks good. There are clear divisions between the panes, the headers are color shaded and so on. It seems to have a lot of features that the MS rubbish does not. Time will tell.

Peter B.

High Contrast ?

Hi, many people like you have commented on this sad decision by MS before, which is where the registry change comes from. (Windows 8 introduction).

Maybe Windowblinds (when available for Win 10) will offer a solution again- that's the only possibility I know of that will offer more extensive changes.

The whit(ish) background in some MS & many 3rd party programs (but not explorer or some system dialogues, control panel etc) is addressed by the registry changes I mentioned. For example, word processing programs, background to the search box (start menu), Recuva, browse dialogues in many programs (but not all), Winrar.... just to give some random examples.

Because MS removed the dialogue that allowed changes to the GUI in order to effectively force a more uniform appearance across devices (and that effect on the background used to include explorer as I recall), the only way to make these changes is to use the registry. It's sad, but there it is. Many people have wanted to change the white background for everything, but there is no simple way.

See for example a very similar question here:
Change Windows Background color in Windows 8

More: search 'Windows 8 white background' (for example).