Is there a black on gray theme?

The default Light theme on Windows 11 (since Windows 10) has always been too "white" for me, I tried using the Dark theme for about 1.5 months and how inconsistent it is with some windows still being white really annoys me. I really miss how XP, Vista and 7 looked and how easy it was to customize them, you just patched uxtheme.dll and loaded your 3rd party themes, now you have to use one program for taskbar and start menu, another for windows title bars and who knows what else and when they are different programs by different people, there is not chance they will look or work in tandem.


I was wondering if there is some kind of a light gray theme with black text, something like this image I created:


I know about the "Classic" high contrast theme, but that one just doesn't look as nice as the real Classic theme that was still available up to Windows 7. I've tried WindowBlinds, but it feels like that one is just fancy themes and WindowBlinds 10 doesn't work for Windows 11 and you have to buy WindowBlinds 11 which is something I don't want to be dumping money into just in hopes to get some QoL basic features that should be part of Windows to begin with.



TL;DR:

Windows 11 Light theme too white and bright, Dark theme too inconsistent and annoying, is there a gray theme that's not "Classic" high contrast?

I have this one:



That works with mostly everything.

Uses SecureUxTheme: GitHub - namazso/SecureUxTheme: A secure boot compatible in-memory UxTheme patcher

and

@FreeBooter 's Blue folder icon from Change_Windows_10_11_folder_icons.zip https://www.elevenforum.com/account/th-attachment-manager/36082/view

Milincho said:

I have this one:

View attachment 56434

That works with mostly everything.

Uses SecureUxTheme: GitHub - namazso/SecureUxTheme: A secure boot compatible in-memory UxTheme patcher

and

@FreeBooter 's Blue folder icon from Change_Windows_10_11_folder_icons.zip https://www.elevenforum.com/account/th-attachment-manager/36082/view

Click to expand...

I tried installing this, but I don't think it's working properly.




Also, what I was looking for is not a dark theme, but a black text on light gray background, like the Classic theme like this:

Mmmm... you made this 1 2 3?...

I was able to do this for Win 8, and then 10. I think it consisted of using like UltraUXThemePatcher followed by making one tweak in the OS registry. I'll see if I can figure out what I did as I just moved to Win 11 using a new machine.

Milincho said:

I have this one:

View attachment 56434

That works with mostly everything.

Uses SecureUxTheme: GitHub - namazso/SecureUxTheme: A secure boot compatible in-memory UxTheme patcher

and

@FreeBooter 's Blue folder icon from Change_Windows_10_11_folder_icons.zip https://www.elevenforum.com/account/th-attachment-manager/36082/view

Click to expand...

What do regedit and device manager look like though?

I tested by saving the theme in Win 10 and then loaded it in Win 11, and for some reason it worked. Many apps grey backgrounds, but not all. It worked for Regedit, but only on the right window. For the left one with the tree, it didn't It also didn't work for Task Manager.

Meanwhile, it also worked for Excel, Word, and so on.

Here's a sample:

does it work on device manager? and also, can you test black to see if it works as well? i dont have a win 10 to test with at the moment

It doesn't work on Device Manager, but it works on Regedit, Excel, Word, SizeMe, and other apps.

I think this is what I did in Win 8.1


That is,

I installed UXTheme Patcher.

I edited the registry at

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors -> Window

and entered the value 200 200 200

Then I resaved the theme.

When I upgraded to Win 10, it carried over. And when I saved the theme in the Win 10 machine and loaded it in Win 11, the same thing happened.

There's another suggestion here:


That is, save the theme file, edit it using Notepad, and look for and change the registry items mentioned earlier.

But did you patch 11 or just import that theme file? Just curious if it works without patching.

I didn't patch Win 11 but only double-clicked on the .theme file I saved in Win 10. The Win 10 machine was patched, though.

With one of this two utilities
f.lux (free)
or
you can make all your desktop, icons and backgrounds grey with black text