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  • Can I change the color of my Windows 10 Taskbar or Start Menu?

Can I change the color of my Windows 10 Taskbar or Start Menu?

August 13, 2015 / Dave Taylor / Windows PC Help / No Comments

Windows 10 seems cool enough, but it seems to be picking a color for my Taskbar and Start Menu that’s related to the Desktop picture. Is that even possible? How do I turn this “feature” off?

Apple was the first to have an OS that had the color of its system elements reflect the predominant color of the background. In the Mac world, it’s the menu bar that is “translucent” and so ends up reflecting the color of the image below it. In the brave new world of Windows 10, it’s Microsoft that’s gone one better, having the system automatically analyze the desktop wallpaper, pick the predominant color, and use that for both the newly restored Start Menu and the Taskbar itself.

Don’t like this feature? You can still turn the feature off and pick your favorite color as part of the theme!

To start, here’s my Start Menu in Win10 when I have a rich, autumn-color background image:

windows 10 win10 start menu in orange / red

You can see that the menu has a very attractive, warm color that looks good against the small part of the background you can see. I kinda like this feature but can absolutely understand the desire to disable it.

To do that, simply right-click anywhere on the Desktop to bring up the context menu:

win10 personalize context menu

Choose “Personalize” as I highlight.

Lots of options, but you’ll want to navigate to “Colors” in the Personalization area:

change win10 start menu color taskbar

Can you see the option on the bottom here? It says Automatically pick an accent color from my background.

Turn that off by clicking on the slider and your menu and Taskbar will flip to the default color.

But hey, why live with that? Instead, scroll down just a bit to reveal all your options:

pick a color for your windows 10 win10 start menu taskbar

Lots of options. You might want to go with the classic green, which you can find by scrolling down even further on this window.

When you do, you’ll bump into two other interesting personalization options:

additional color personalization windows 10 win10 theme options

Turns out you can turn off the color entirely and have it just be the default for Microsoft Windows 10. More useful, you can also turn off the translucence (it’s not transparent, not sure why they say that!) effect if you’re so inclined. Try it, you’ll immediately see the difference.

For my part, I like the system picking an accent color from my background, but if you want something different, you can now see exactly how to accomplish that!

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Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!
customize win10 colors, disable win10 transparency, start menu color, taskbar color, win10 start menu, win10 theme, windows 10

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