Ittechsavvy: How to add colours to Windows 10 available in the creators update

Windows 10 has been around for close to three years now. If you were among the very first set of users you may be able to recall that the first instance of windows 10 lacked favour when talking about colour. Practically, the only colour in the title bars was white. That was frustrating for the mere fact that we've been able to change the colour of title bars ever since Windows 3.x—but having only white title bars also made it difficult to distinguish between active and inactive windows.

Within the first five months of the initial release, Microsoft released the Windows 10 Update, which, among other things, included the capability to set the colour of the active title bar.

While being able to once again set the color of active title bars made it easier to distinguish between active and inactive windows, it would have been nice to be able to set the color of inactive title bars as well. Unfortunately, Microsoft never completely brought back that feature. It did, however; leave some codes in the registry you could use to add color to inactive title bars.

If you have been longing for more control over the colours in Windows 10's user interface, you'll be happy to learn more about the new colourization features Microsoft has bestowed upon the operating system in the Creators Update. Let's go there.

The Colours tab

The new colourizing features are of course found on the Colours tab, which you can quickly access by pressing Windows+I to bring up the Windows Settings window, typing Colour, and clicking Colour settings, as shown in the screenshot below.

Windows colour setting

Looking at the Colours tab, shown in the pic, you'll notice that Microsoft has simplified and reorganized the layout.

Colour setting layout

Customising accent Colour

Creating a custom accent colour is indeed fascinating. To see how this works, let's begin by picking a colour from the default colour palette. For example, choose Red and click the Custom Colour button.

When the Choose A Custom Accent Colour dialog appears, you can see the color is targeted on Red, as indicated by the circle in the upper-right corner of the color field and the tooltip, as shown in the screenshot, the bar on the right also shows the selected colour. The Colour Preview boxes show you how the colour will appear in the user interface.

Customising colour

The slide bar at the bottom of the colour field allows you to adjust the value of the selected colour. Value is defined as the relative lightness or darkness of a colour. Sliding to the right increases the value, making the colour lighter. Sliding to the left gives an opposite effect, making the colour darker. As you move the slider, you'll see a tooltip appear above the slider that displays the value and the colour. When you have a dark colour selected, as you decrease the value you'll reach a point where the colour is too dark and you'll see this message appear below the Colour Preview boxes: This colour is not supported. As you adjust the value, the top half of the bar on the right of the palette will change to match the colour value, while the bottom of the bar will stay the original colour. All these items are shown in the screen shot below.

slide bar adjustment

Customising background colour

In addition to choosing a custom accent colour, you can choose a custom background colour. When you are finished choosing your custom accent color, select the Background tab.

Select Solid Colour from the Background drop-down and you'll see a Custom Colour button just below the color palette, as shown in the screenshot. Now, choosing a custom color for your desktop background works just like choosing your accent colour.