Change Windows 10 Theme Without Activation

[Sourabh Doherty]

If you want to make Windows 10 look like Windows 7/macOS, you can download and install a Windows 7/macOS theme on the computer. It means that you need to change the current theme. It is easy to switch the theme, but things are different if your Windows is not activated yet.

There are certainly good reasons for wanting to change the current theme programmatically. E.g. an automated test tool may need to switch between various themes to make sure the application works correctly with all of them.

As a user, you can change the theme by double-clicking a .theme file in Windwos Explorer and then closing the Control Panel applet that pops up. You can easily do the same from code. The steps below work just fine for me. I've only tested on Windows 7.

You'll still end up with the Personalisation window beeing open after using this command so to close it down programatically you'll have to use one of the suggested methods mentioned above... (I personally prefer the Powershell script)

I have been experimenting about changing the windows theme via command line and I learned that by executing the theme file it is being applied by the Windows 10 as well. So in your batch file, you could use one of the following lines:

Please note the path to the theme files might be needed to adjust depending on your system user configuration. I strongly advise saving your themes with names excluding spaces as it makes much easier moving forward. Executing such line leaving you with the Settings window opened. To deal with I considered using VBS script instead. Thanks to Patrick Haugh user1390106 there is a much easier way to close the Settings window.

I believe the best you can do is open your target .msstyles file (in c:\windows\resources\themes), which will pop up the display properties box. At this point you could use window subclassing to programmatically click the right buttons.

In addition of the post of "Jan Goyvaerts":I use SendMessage instead of PostMessage. The difference is that SendMessage waits for the command to be taken in by the window. Meaning that in the SendMessages returns, you know that the theme dialog is closed.

So if you start it with the monstrous (but genious) rundll32.exe method suggested by "Campbell". You should wait a sec before sending WM_CLOSE. Otherwise the theme will not be set and the application closes right away.

The code snippet below extracts a file from resource (a themepack). Then executes the desk.cpl with rundll32.exe, waits 3 sceonds, then sends WM_CLOSE (0x0010), waits for the command to be process (the time it takes for the theme to be set).

For a user that logs in, we simply run ChangeTheme.vbs as the user logs in (e.g. autorun). The script starts desk.cpl and passes the required parameters to it as well as the name of the selected theme.

I am in the process of building a custom Windows 10 media PC for church. I would like the users to have a color scheme and background that corresponds to the liturgical color for that service (so if the altar is draped in purple, the computer theme is also purple). One computer will calculate the appropriate color based upon the liturgical calendar and any church events (for example: a baptism, wedding, or funeral service) and act as the "server" for this information to all of the rest of the systems. My plan is to save themes for each color while configuring the system. I am having difficulty finding an automated way on login and periodically throughout the day to change the entire theme (not just the background), and specifically one that would not require administrative privileges. Since many people without significant computer knowledge will be using this PC, and to follow best practices, the main account must be user-level privileges only with a few select administrators from the congregation staff/ volunteers.

Windows Color Scheme (Theme) Program - the recommended software is for much more UI customization (per-application skins, custom fonts, etc.), which is way more than what I want and would likely confuse people. Also, the need is for programmatic control of the theme and this requires user action.

You could use .theme files for this, since they are installed by simply executingthem and can change colors and many other things.And especially, they can be installed by any user without requiring administratorprivileges.

For example, you could prepare your themes on your computer.Any changes you make are recorded in the fileC:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\Custom.theme,or you could save the theme under some name.

You could copy the themes to some network share on your computer or any centralserver. You would install the themes via tasks defined via the Task Scheduler,which will just install the theme of the day (or hour) as you programmed.

This is not in a theme but is found in the registry at keyHKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize,value named AppsUseLightTheme (DWORD), where0 is for Dark theme and 1 for Light theme.I don't know if this change requires restarting Explorer or logout/in.

Easiest would be to connect to his machine remotely, and log in as a local admin and make the registry changes manually, have him change his theme, then revert the registry changes and he should be good to go.

If it is reverting to Windows basic theme (Non-Aero) check to make sure that there are not any problems with video drivers. Also some third party remote support mirror drivers will disable Aero functionality forcing windows basic theme.

I have installed a fresh copy of Windows Server 2012 and when I go to Control Panel > Appearance > Display > Color and Appearance it states "This page is not available in this edition of Windows".

The version I installed is the latest from MSDN subscriber downloads and is listed under Computer Properties as "Windows Server 2012 Standard". I can change the desktop background color, but not the colors of the window borders. The only "schemes" available are "Windows Basic" and then 4 even uglier "High Contrast" schemes.

You'll need to enable the "Desktop Experience" feature to get the desktop parts (color schemes, 3d graphics, windows media player etc). We do this on our terminal servers. You might have to force users into using a defined style - this can be done via the local group policy or in a regular domain based GPO.

If you don't want to install the Desktop Experience feature (and you should think twice about it, as it also installs a bunch of apps), there is another option that's a bit limited but might work: the High Contrast color schemes.

Unfortunately, in their infinite wisdom, Microsofties don't allow you to customize all of the colors, so this approach definitely involves some trade-offs. In particular, the taskbar color is not directly customizable. But I still seem to prefer a tweaked high contrast scheme to the default, without the risks of installing Windows Media Player and AVI codecs on my servers.

I navigated to Appearance -> Sync Metro/Aero Color, and then clicked Change both colors at once. And voil, the awful colour was gone instantly, without the need of installing thousands of the Desktop Experience components and system restart. And I can do it again, if I come to hate the colour in the future.

Hopefully MS will catch up with the rest of the world one day, and have an option to have Windows 10 dark theme enable at sunset. It would be great if Roon set its light/dark theme based on whatever is set in Windows.

Finally, regardless of what you like (using the dark theme all the time), there is a reason all these app and OS developers are baking in options to change themes based on the time of day: a significant amount of research has demonstrated that dark themes in brighter lit conditions can cause eye strain in the same way a light theme in a dimly lit environment can.

These sorts of darkness modes is a common feature, and would be hugely health beneficial for peoples eyes. Regardless of what you like, these are such widely regarded facts that entire operating systems now have this function.

It seems that Thunderbird follows the Windows 10 settings and installs Dark mode, making the emails/messages unreadable.From what I've read, the only way to correct that is to set Windows in Light mode, which is not always suitable.

It can be a bit tricky to set the Windows colors with the TB theme. I can have the default app and Windows mode both Dark, yet have TB stay 'light' with the Weatherlicious add-on (see picture). But without the add-on, TB is only 'light' if the default app mode is Light.

It looks like the bootstrap script is only needed for local theme preview/development. If you just want use the theme, then I think you could probably just add theme: jekyll-theme-minimal to _config.yml.

Plus if you install a theme using theme field can switch themes and upgrade theme versions without trying to see how your fork of 100 files differs from the original theme of 100 files. You just have to care about your few md files and config

Hi all, a few years ago I went through an experience that gave me heightened photosensitivity. In order to use a computer for extended periods I need to change the visual settings of my OS to high contrast. Luckily Windows 11 makes this really easy, I can make custom settings in settings>accessibility>contrast themes.

With Power BI Desktop report themes, you can apply design changes to your entire report, such as using corporate colors, changing icon sets, or applying new default visual formatting. When you apply a report theme, all visuals in your report use the colors and formatting from your selected theme as their defaults. A few exceptions are described later in this article.

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