[Windows 10 Tip] Get Colors on Titlebars of Inactive (Background) Program Windows

[Batu69]

When Windows 10 RTM build 10240 was released, the titlebars of all program windows were pure White. It was too much distracting and was annoying a lot of people. Windows 10 users wanted colored titlebars back just like previous Windows versions.

Microsoft finally listened users complaints and the company enabled colors titlebars in program windows in the recently released Windows 10 November Update build 10586 which is also known as Threshold 2 build. Now you can enable colors on program titlebars using Settings app as mentioned in following tutorial:

[Tip] Get Rid of White Titlebars in Windows 10

But there is still a minor issue. The new setting only enables colors on titlebars of active i.e. current program window. The titlebar color of all inactive program windows i.e. background windows is still White which is not pleasing many Windows 10 users. Following image shows how the inactive program windows show White titlebar in Windows 10:

We also posted an exclusive tutorial to tweak this colorization feature of Windows 10. With the help of some Registry tweaks you can have colored Taskbar, Start Menu but White titlebar or you can have dark Taskbar, Start Menu with colored titlebar. Check out following link for detailed instructions:

Tweak Colorization Settings for Titlebar, Taskbar and Start Menu in Windows 10

Today in this tutorial, we are going to share a small and easy to use Registry tweak which will allow you to get colors on titlebars of inactive program windows as well. With the help of this tutorial, you'll be able to show colors on all program windows whether the window is active or inactive in Windows 10 as shown in following image:

So without wasting time lets share the tweak:

1. Press WIN+R keys together to launch RUN dialog box, type regedit in RUN and press Enter. It'll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

3. In right-side pane, create a new DWORD and set its name as AccentColorInactive

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM

4. This new DWORD will set the color of titlebar of all inactive program windows which are shown in background. The value of this DWORD is set by the hexadecimal code of desired color. The value can be given in following format:

Here BB represents Blue, GG represents Green and RR represents Red color value.

BBGGRR

You can grab your desired color hexadecimal code from any color website or using an image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop, Gimp, etc.

For example, if you want to have dark black color of active titlebar, set value of AccentColor DWORD to 111111 and you can set AccentColorInactive DWORD value to 666666 for a little bit lighter titlebar of inactive windows.

NOTE: Keep in mind that generally a color code uses RRGGBB format but the above mentioned DWORD accepts the reverse of the code i.e. BBGGRR. So when you grab the hexadecimal code of your desired color, reverse the digits and set it as the value of AccentColorInactive DWORD.

PS: If you want to set inactive window titlebar color same as active window titlebar color, just double-click on AccentColor DWORD present in right-side pane of Registry Editor, copy its value and paste the set in value field of AccentColorInactive DWORD.

5. Close Registry Editor and Windows will immediately start showing your desired color on titlebars of inactive program windows.

If you want to restore default settings in future, just delete the AccentColorInactive DWORD from Registry Editor.

NOTE: If you are not familiar with Registry editing tasks, we are providing ready-made Registry script to set dark black titlebar for active program window and a little bit lighter titlebar for inactive program windows as shown in above image. Download following ZIP file, extract it and run .REG file. It'll ask for confirmation, accept it:

Registry Tweak to Enable Colors on Inactive Titlebars in Windows 10

Also check out following exclusive video showing the whole process live in action:

Video:

Credit to

[p4psb]

Nice one.

[Kalju]

But why not use the Settings panel? Why this method is better?

[Roy W]

Agree with Kalju.Why go through all this trouble?

Do it via settings,and it works just fine.

[Chatman]

Kalju & Roy W,

Are you talking about these settings?

With the Settings Panel, the inactive window titlebars remain white

With the method posted by Batu69,

All Windows Titlebars are colored

[948bennett]

By using settings i guess you are restricted to the given colours where as a registry tweak you can input anything.

[rudrax]

I was wondering if there's a way to change the white color of firefox top-right corner.

[Rok]

Don't you think adding a color for all via registry is cumbersome? And, also, just an oversight can cause non-working OS to many?

[VileTouch]

Do you think adding a color for all inactive programs via registry is cumbersome, and, just an oversight can cause non-working OS to many?

nah, you would need to do something extremely stupid for that to happen.... like deleting the microsoft registry hive.

anyway, AccentColorInactine seem to be taking RR GG BB colors now (as it should)