Jack2763

Join Date 10/2024

Windows10 and Windows11 in dark mode - only bad themes found

I do use Windows 10 and Windows 11 Version 23H2 (OS Build 22631.4317) in dark mode: everythin has nice graded panes.

I installed WindowsBlinds 11 just to improve the borders of the windows.

And then I was shocked! The nice look of everthing was gone! It screwed litterally up verything: the start menu, the taskbar, the content of the windows. Only the borders started to look nice. The rest started to look extremely terrible.

Even when switching back to dark mode, I was left with black (not gray) windows panes, and the start menu colors had become a complete disaster, not matching the dark theme.
In some programs, like Total Commander a helish white bar appeared in the Menu Strip, together with a horizontal line all across the width of the menu.

I was a bit in panic, hoping I could revert to the situation before I installed WindowBlinds.
Finally I found how to do it and selected the 'Default theme' by Microsoft, the first one.
This one however doesn't have the 'Modify style' and 'Manage presets' buttons.

So I like to improve the style of the upper edges of the windows only.
I searched themes, perferable nice dark themed ones, but nothing found.

Am I one of the very few people using dark theme in windows?

I already purchased the program, not knowing about the overall bad outcome in dark themes.

How can I still use it in a good way?
I just want to change the border of windows, not touching anything inside them, and not change the startmenu and not the taskbar.

Does anyone know nice dark themes for WindowsBlinds that can do that?

I hope somebody can help out.

This is my default theme:

windowblinds stardock games

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Just to get this thread started, we need to know your full Windows version number. (Use winver.exe) and Windowblinds version.

Also, there is a possibility that Totalcommander is not fully compatible with Windowblinds because the app has it's own customizing engine with possibilities to change colours etc. I installed Totalcommander (latest 64bit version) in Windows 10 and got no white bar or stripes in the menues. A screenshot of what you see and the name of the theme you applied would be most helpful.

Dark themes will always have some (mostly minor) colour issues because Windows itself has some hard coded parts that cannot be changed and some apps need to be excluded from being skinned in Windowblinds configuration to get readable text among some other issues.

I just want to change the border of windows, not touching anything inside them, and not change the startmenu and not the taskbar.

Does anyone know nice dark themes for WindowsBlinds that can do that?

The whole idea of using Windowblinds is to change those parts, so no, but there are themes that come close to the default look of Windows, but let's get back to that later.

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Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. There are lots of theme that look good in dark mode. Here a good example. Its SteamPowered by SimplexDesign.

Thank you.
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

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c242

Join Date 03/2001

+380

It is not the skinners fault though. There are parts of Windows that WindowBlinds cannot skin/recolor any more. So You get a whole inconsistent look. Black headers ond dark background in the headers in explorer as seen above is just one example.

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Exactly. With Windows 10 and 11 continuously upgraded,it's hard for Windowblinds keep the pace. Not to mention some of software did not follow the conventional way,like having its own theme is making harder WB to "skin".

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This is a very helpful community, thank you very much!

This one indeed looks good! I don't know what steampowered means though. I saw some teams which are steampowered.

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Quoting Jack2763,

reply 5

steampowered

It's designed & named after the game platform Steam

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