Best way to change just a few Win32 elements without applying a whole theme?

thevisi0nary · Oct 14, 2023

One of the apps I use has Win32 elements that obviously do not inherit dark mode. I would like to avoid applying an entire theme just to change a menu bar and some window backgrounds.

What are the most concise ways to accomplish this on Win 11?

glasskuter · Oct 14, 2023

3rd party App developers have to design any/all parts of their app to support dark mode. As far as I know you cannot change anything natively within Windows that would make these elements dark as the hard coding within the app itself does not support it.

Possibly a third party app like Windowblinds can do it but I can not say for certain since I've never used it.

thevisi0nary · Oct 14, 2023

glasskuter said:
3rd party App developers have to design any/all parts of their app to support dark mode. As far as I know you cannot change anything natively within Windows that would make these elements dark as the hard coding within the app itself does not support it.

Possibly a third party app like Windowblinds can do it but I can not say for certain since I've never used it.

Thank you. My concern with Windowblinds is possibly introducing performance issues. It sucks because it's mainly just the menu bar I want to change because it sticks out like a sore thumb, but all the options to change it seem a little sketchy.

glasskuter · Oct 14, 2023

There are other 3rd party apps that may be able to do what you want, but as I said, I do not use any of them so I can't verify that. There are many people here who do use the different ones. Maybe one of them will step in and steer you in the right direction.