Easy When You Know How
Convinced ‘Metal blue’ is the new avocado, Daniel Booth grabs his digital paintbrush and tries to…
Change Windows 10’s default colours
For the past week there have been five splodges of green paint on our bedroom wall at home. Well, I say green, but I’m told by my better half they’re actually different shades of avocado. “Which one would look best?” I’m asked. Scared to admit that they all look the same to me, I point at one randomly. “That one”. “You’re wrong,” I’m told, “it’s that one over there”. Thus are decisions made in our house.
Happily, I’ve got more control over how Windows 10 looks on my computer. There’s not a trace of avocado. There’s not a trace of much, in actual fact. For too long I’ve left the colours as Microsoft’s default. This isn’t because I think Microsoft knows best. It’s because I’m lazy, and have to think about doing something at least 20 times before I finally get around to it (including painting my bedroom).
So, it’s about time I grab my digital paintbrush and discover whether I can make Windows more attractive. And that means avoiding avocado. I love them in a chicken sandwich, but not on my PC’S desktop.
In fact, I decide I don’t like any of the shades of green offered by Windows. You’ll find these by opening Settings (press Windows key+i), selecting
Personalisation, then Colours. Scroll down and you’ll see the greens at the bottom right of the colour palette. Hover over them to reveal their names: plain ‘Green’ is surrounded by ‘Meadow green’, ‘Turf green’ and others. None of them are as soothing as their names. The pinks, purples and oranges aren’t any better: too cheerful, too flashy.
No, I prefer the solid, dependable greys at the bottom left (there are eight shades, 42 short of what’s considered erotically acceptable). Here’s my thinking (such as it is): as software icons become more garish, they would benefit from a darker background. ‘Metal blue’, for example, seems to provide the ideal contrast for logos like Chrome, the Microsoft Store and every photo editor I’ve ever used.
Maybe this could be my ‘accent colour’ (as Microsoft likes to call it). Let’s give it a go. First, I untick the box ‘Automatically pick an accent colour from my background’ to stop Microsoft deciding for me. Then I tick ‘Metal blue’ and see my browser bar turn the colour of a submarine.
Confusingly however, my taskbar stays the same dirty white of an unwashed van. The reason for this is that I haven’t ticked the ‘Start, taskbar and action centre’ box below the palette. More precisely, I couldn’t tick it, because it is greyed out.
It seems I was too hasty when scrolling straight to the colour palette and thereby missed the option in the ‘Choose your colour’ dropdown menu to set my overall Windows colour as Light or Dark. This determines which visual elements you can tweak in Windows. Choose Light and you won’t be able to change your taskbar, Start menu or action centre. Choose Dark, and you’re free to drip paint all over Windows like Jackson Pollock.
Take a look at the screenshot.
It shows my computer bathed, top to bottom, left to right, in ‘Metal blue’. I like to think it looks rather stylish and understated, though I wouldn’t argue if you claimed it’s duller than an overcast Sunday in January.
Once you’ve chosen your colour, you can tweak it by clicking ‘Custom colour’ and moving the slider left (to make it darker) or right (lighter). The preview bars below show you the changes as you slide. If you know the hex colour of your dream shade, click More and type it into the box. Steer clear of #568203 though unless you want Windows to look like an avocado bathroom suite from the 1970s.
My browser bar turned the colour of a submarine, though my taskbar stayed dirty white like an unwashed van
Need help changing the appearance of Windows? Let us know: noproblem@ computeractive.co.uk