XP scrollbar background color

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kenneth Porter
  • Start date Start date
K

Kenneth Porter

The default XP scrollbar background color is a pale white, barely darker
than the background color for a main window. In a large text document (with
a correspondingly small scrollbar thumb), this makes it difficult to tell
that there *is* a scrollbar.

Display Properties | Appearance | Advanced allows one to change the size of
the scrollbar but not its color. How does one change the color?
 
Hi Kenneth,

WindowsXP visual themes use graphics rather than shapes and colours so
you'll have to gain access to the resource file, edit the scrollbar graphic
and then recompile. I won't go into the specifics but if you download a free
program called "ResEdit" from here... http://www.tgtsoft.com/download.php
and then open the resource file...

c:\windows\resources\themes\lunaX.msstyles

you can have a nose around and get the gist of it. Just save your edited
style out under a different name then click on its icon. This will call up
the properties page so that you can save the theme out. One last thing... MS
in their infinite wisdom made windowsxp unable to load any themes other than
the three default ones so you'll either have to invest in a proggy like
windowblinds or stylexp to unlock this, alternatively do a search for a
hacked version of a file called uxtheme.dll and install the correct version
(<SP1 or SP2>) into the windows\system32 and windows\servicepackfiles\i386\
folders.

Hope that helps

Andy
 
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