Personalization Enable or Disable Show Shadows under Windows in Windows 11

I am using a theme because it displays the accent colour in File Explorer title bar. However, when using a theme or customizing a theme, the desktop top icon titles have a dropshadow. I unchecked the dropshadow option in performance but they still show.

If I don't use a theme, instead choose a solid background and accent colour, the the File Explorer title bar accent colour remains grey (however, will randomly display the chosen accent colour, different days/times and surprise!) and there are no desktop icon dropshadow.

1. I choose a Theme (blue one that comes with WIN11), unchecked dropshadow option. After Restart the result is the automatic accent colour on the File Explorer title bar and no dropshadows on the desktop icon titles -THIS IS GREAT but not the colours I want
2. I customized that same Theme to a solid background and manual accent colour, seems successful. Accent colour and no dropshadows.
BUT AFTER RESTART
3. Same saved customized Theme, unchecked dropshadow option. After Restart no accent colour on file explorer title bar and dropshadows on desktop icon titles
4. A couple of hours after setting the customized theme, I clicked File Explorer folder and surprise, the title bar is the accent colour! (the same thing happens with the accent colour when I don t use a theme where it randomly appears some days at different times)
5. I restarted and the title bar is back to grey using the customized them from step 1.

Since I want the accent colour on the File Explorer title bar and no dropshadows I have to choose a preset Theme, it does not work if I customize a Theme. I don't like any of the Themes!

CharmaineK said:

1. I choose a Theme (blue one that comes with WIN11), unchecked dropshadow option. After Restart the result is the automatic accent colour on the File Explorer title bar and no dropshadows on the desktop icon titles -THIS IS GREAT but not the colours I want
2. I customized that same Theme to a solid background and manual accent colour, seems successful. Accent colour and no dropshadows.
BUT AFTER RESTART
3. Same saved customized Theme, unchecked dropshadow option. After Restart no accent colour on file explorer title bar and dropshadows on desktop icon titles
4. A couple of hours after setting the customized theme, I clicked File Explorer folder and surprise, the title bar is the accent colour! (the same thing happens with the accent colour when I don t use a theme where it randomly appears some days at different times)
5. I restarted and the title bar is back to grey using the customized them from step 1.

Since I want the accent colour on the File Explorer title bar and no dropshadows I have to choose a preset Theme, it does not work if I customize a Theme. I don't like any of the Themes!

Click to expand...

UPDATE: I will just select SLEEP instead of SHUTDOWN each night. Atleast then my custom settings saved in order to have an accent color on the File Explorer title bar and no dropshadows on desktop icon are displaying correctly without reconfiguring each morning. I am certain it is a profile issue as my changes are not saving and revert back once I shutdown or restart. I even tried changing the accent color under regedit but no resolve.

Not sure if this is related to the topic, because I do not know the names of the effects. Often when I snap windows around the shadows stick and will show on the other virtual desktops, and staying on top of other windows. See the screenshot.

I have tried SystemPropertiesPerformance.exe and unchecked all, and also "Accessibility > Visual effects" and unchecked "Transparency effect" and "Animation effects", separately, but to no avail.

Maybe the option for shadows under windows used to be in Accessibility -> Visual Effects. On my system, this option is simply not there.



Strike one.

I went to the registry key you mention above & found this:



If I knew which value to change to affect drop down shadows, I surely would have changed it.

Strike two.

Fortunately, executing SystemPropertiesPerformance did bring up the Performance Options dialog in which I unchecked both the Show shadows under windows option & the Use drop down shadows for icon labels on the desktop checkboxes. I started with the radio button at the top on Let Windows choose what's best for my computer. I did not move the radio button. The action of changing any of the checkboxes apparently automatically moves the radio button to Custom.

No strike 3. You're not out.

The symptom that I was trying to cure was this. I have 2 monitors. On my desk I have a regular old computer monitor. On the opposite side of the room I have my TV. I have defined my TV as my second monitor. I have them oriented so that the monitor on my desk is "on the left" & the TV is "on the right." I was seeing a faint black shadow along the left edge of the TV. After much hunting around, I determined that this shadow was bleeding over from the multiple windows of a particular application on my desk. But dragging the right edges of those windows slightly away from the right edge of the display didn't make the shadow disappear. If I minimized all the offending windows, the shadow went away. But as I brought the windows back into visibility one by one on my desk, the shadow gradually came back on my TV & got slightly worse as I redisplayed each window. It seemed like each successive shadow being cast cascaded out beyond its predecessor. Unchecking the Show shadows under windows box in the oh-so-hard-to-find Performance Options dialog was probably enough. But I unchecked the 2 boxes at the same time so I can't say anything more than "probably."

When we're talking about something so basically simple as a system property, it is a bug if you have to resort to either a registry change or manually executing some system program. Apparently, this particular bug was introduced by some recent maintenance, according to what I found by web searches outside this forum. It would be nice if this bug got fixed in some new maintenance. But for me, that fix will be moot because I've already removed the shadows bleeding over from one monitor to the other & for me this case is closed.

Totally off-topic but something I discovered creating the 2 images I inserted in my post above. To get the screenshot of the Settings, I just hit my PrintScreen key & pasted the image into the application I use for images (not Paint). When I had the Performance Options displayed, PrintScreen did nothing. Win+Shift+s did work, however. Except I used my image app to grab that image. Only after the fact did I go looking for an answer & discovered the Win+Shift+s keyboard shortcut. This is good to know. PrintScreen doesn't always activate Snippy. But then, there's the keyboard shortcut for such situations. Now the questions is, why didn't PrintScreen work? Very strange . . .

And since I mentioned it, my alternative to Paint is Fast Stone Image Viewer. I don't want be mysterious about such things.

WildWilly said:

Maybe the option for shadows under windows used to be in Accessibility -> Visual Effects. On my system, this option is simply not there.

Click to expand...

The option you have to switch off to get no shadows on the text of the dekstop icons is: Animation effects.
Besides that, the change that @Brink is pointing to in his startpost is neccesary as well!
Anyway, that's how I did it.
There is no separate option in the Accessibility menu to switch off shadows.

Interesting. I have left Animation effects on. I have only unchecked the box in the Performance Options dialog. That one action by itself was enough to turn off the window shadows for me. I'm not too fussed about the icon text shadows. I have nothing on my Desktop except for Recycle Bin (which I have disabled, going all the way back to W3.1) My Desktop is pretty much permanently obscured by what I have open. I operate with Win, Win+x, Win+<a digit>, Win+t, Alt+Tab. About the only time I go to my Desktop is after some application's installer has rudely not offered me the option to not put their shortcut on the Desktop. So I go delete it. Then I resume ignoring the Desktop. If icon text has shadows, I don't see them. I unchecked that second box because it seemed like the consistent thing to do.

I do see now, that this topic is as a matter of fact about shadows under around the windows, not about dropshadows on the icon text on the desktop. Reason I was wrong, was that @CharmaineK bended the topic into that direction.

Anyway: as far as I know in Windows11 there is no option in the Accessibility settings with what you can turn on or off shadows around windows.