Dark Windows Themes

Question

I spend all day staring at computer screens. I have changed my Visual Studio theme to a dark theme, and find it much easier on the eyes. I'd like to change the rest of windows.

Unfortunately, the only themes installed by default that are dark, are high contrast. Which is NOT what I am going for here.

I can't seem to find an official dark theme, that isn't high contrast.

I've found dynamic black, which is a good example of what I'm looking for, but it's not an official theme.

Is there anything out there?

Solution 1

There is a dark theme now for Windows 10(updated).

To enable Dark Mode, head to Settings > Personalization > Colors. Scroll down and select the “Dark” option under the “Choose your app mode” section.

The Settings application itself immediately turns dark, as will many other “Universal Windows Platform” applications (those you get from the Windows Store).

Solution 2

First, there is a difference between themes and actually changing the look of the entire UI. Themes are purely for changing the look of the Aero MSStyle, which doesn't give you the ability to make any major changes. MSStyles are complete UI elements that are capable of changing almost every UI element of the computer. (E.G. Aero and Luna.)

However, there are no other "offical" MSStyles. Microsoft only supplies Aero, any others require patching the computer. You could just switch your Aero color to black and then it will appear darker. You also could switch to basic mode, and then manually change your windows theme.

Now, window blinds is a good solution, however be sure to pay for the full version first. Removing the trial version without upgrading is very difficult and caused some problems on my laptop. (Safemode, Administrator rights, all that jazz) They are a sneaky company. I'm not saying that their products are bad, just know that there is a possibility that it could cause some performance issues and removing the program is not any piece of chocolate cake.

Solution 3

Windows 7 allows you to turn off the Aero theme, and use an older windows theme instead. This does disable some window manager features, but it also allows you to adjust the default colors for most of the "classic" windows theme!

How to turn off Aero:

1. Right click your desktop and click "Personalize"
2. In the Theme selection window, you can select the "Windows Classic" theme under "Basic and High Contrast Themes"

How to customize Windows Classic theme colors:

After that theme has loaded, the "Window Color" setting at the bottom of the "Personalize" window should now open a menu that looks something like this:

From this window you should be able to customize most of the colors used by the Windows Classic theme, and this will affect almost every application that uses the Win32 API for drawing windows.

Here is what I managed to set up by changing just a few of the default colors:

Solution 4

Without using Third Party software, you're limited to the few themes Microsoft provides. You could simply change the Aero Theme to black, and then make it see through, that way it will take on the color of your desktop background. That may work for you with a black wallpaper.

If you do decide to go down the Third Party Route, I highly recommend WindowBlinds by StarDock. They're a known company, with legit ( Non-Free ) software, which would be safe for your work computer if you were given the 'go-ahead' to install it.

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Comments

[uxout]

If you insist on official ones (why?) the only source is Microsoft. windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/personalize/…

[CaffGeek]

@Shinrai, it's a work computer, and I'd prefer not to just install things from random sources. And that link from MS seems to just be background images, and a custom border colour.

[uxout]

Exactly. That's all they offer. (You did say "official themes" and that's what those are - themes.) If you're saying you don't want Aero, that is you want to change the UI, you cannot do that without 3rd party software.

[Basj]

PS about bounty: I already modified background to black, etc. it's already better. But the main Explorer windows still has a white background. Of course I could change everything manually, but since I'm not a designer, the result will be poorer than a "real" theme made by a UI designer.

[Josiah]

I understand that. But when he says Themes, I think he is talking about custom MSStyles, as I'm assuming Dynamic Black is an MSStyle. Therefore, his only choice is to either switch the the basic mode and manually customize or use black as his window color in Personalize.

[CaffGeek]

@Shinrai, you're assuming I knew there was a distinction.

[user1984103]

UxStyle is the other route for loading unsigned MsStyles. It does in-memory patching so there's no actual file modifications, and is very well established. I've found it to be much less intensive than WindowBlinds, though usually the theme dictates which I have to use.

[Josiah]

Actually, I have had quite a bit of problems with Stardock. Be very careful while using their software. It works well while you have it, but removing it is very difficult.

[Tillman32]

What difficulties have you ran into when uninstalling? Are you talking StarDock as in their free version of the Dock? Or are we talking WindowBlinds? Add/Remove programs hasn't failed me with WindowBlinds, I just set the theme back to Aero, and uninstalled. I could see maybe a potential issue if you downloaded a bad theme from somewhere untrusted.

[Basj]

I already modified background to black, etc. it's already better. But the main Explorer windows still has a white background. Of course I could change everything manually, but since I'm not a designer, the result will be poorer than a "real" theme made by Microsoft.

[Basj]

Is there one for win 7?

[Haseeb Hassan Asif]

Microsoft has not given a dark theme in windows 7 officially. But there are 3rd party software that can help you. However, make sure your antivirus is updated before downloading any 3rd party software/theme. Maybe this will help youtube.com/watch?v=U6aBwbqdqpI or youtube.com/watch?v=74W9tIFiHL4 or blog.fonepaw.com/enable-dark-theme-windows-10-8-7.html

[Basj]

@DarthAndroid Is UxStyle safe?

[Basj]

Thank you for your answer. I tried something similar but it was difficult to have a good looking interface (evil is in the details)... Is there a way to export such color choices? If so we can maybe post this file to a github as a starting point, and the people with designer eyes can improve it :)

[Romen]

@Basj, It looks like the customizations can be saved under "My Themes", which goes in your %LocalAppData%/Microsoft/Windows/Themes folder as a .theme file. It is a text file, so you should be able to modify the RGB values in notepad and share that on github :).

[Basj]

Thanks :) Do you want to share the one you've started? Then I'll continue modifications and send back, until we have a good looking theme @Romen?

[Romen]

@Basj, Unfortunately the only Windows 7 machine I had access to make that screenshot was a VM I have deleted already :(. You can copy the existing Windows Classic theme file from C:/Windows/Resources/Themes and use this as a reference for all of the settings though. I only changed like 4 colours for that screenshot, the "Window" background to black and text to white, the "Control" background to the default dark grey in the palette, and "Hyperlink" to blue. And the "Active Window Title" to red.

[user1984103]

@Basj It was at the time of my posting 7 years ago. I've not used it recently, and thus can't comment.