How to change textbox TEXT color in Properties dialog

[e-t-l]

Windows Version: Win11 25H2

Question
I noticed recently (after updating 24H2->25H2, so that may be responsible for the breakage) that in Properties dialog boxes, the text in textfields is now black instead of white. Since the background is black, this means it is unreadable (unless I highlight/select the text with my cursor, as shown in the screenshot below).

What do I need to change to fix this?

Additional context
Uploaded my msstyles file below (it's not zipped; just remove .zip from the filename)

Checklist

• My uxtheme.dll is patched
• I am using the latest version of msstyleEditor
• I checked the Wiki
• None of the other issues cover this

--
Black-Win.msstyles.zip

[amymor]

this color is controlled by registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors
WindowText

i recommend using a gray color (not pure white or black) like 192,192,192 because its used in many application with white background (e.g. GPU-Z > Advanced tab)
you can also include these colors in your .theme file like this:

[Control Panel\Colors]
Scrollbar=200 200 200
Background=0 0 0
ActiveTitle=153 180 209
InactiveTitle=191 205 219
Menu=218 220 222
Window=222 222 220
WindowFrame=100 100 100
MenuText=14 14 14
WindowText=14 14 14
TitleText=14 14 14
ActiveBorder=180 180 180
InactiveBorder=244 247 252
AppWorkspace=115 115 115
Hilight=235 181 131
HilightText=14 14 14
ButtonFace=211 211 211
ButtonShadow=114 100 100
GrayText=88 41 41
ButtonText=14 14 14
InactiveTitleText=14 14 14
ButtonHilight=235 235 235
ButtonDkShadow=105 105 105
ButtonLight=227 227 227
InfoText=14 14 14
InfoWindow=219 221 227
ButtonAlternateFace=0 0 0
HotTrackingColor=0 102 204
GradientActiveTitle=185 209 234
GradientInactiveTitle=215 228 242
MenuHilight=235 181 131
MenuBar=221 221 221

[e-t-l]

Thanks, that's really helpful! And maybe this is a dumb question, but those registry/theme values will affect all windows and not just, er, the Control Panel?

[amymor]

It's really hard for me to tell what's affected and what's not, they have a lot of impact while many places are not affected. For example, the "Window" color affects the background of the right panel in Regedit while the left panel color is controlled by msstyle.

It seems to depend on the app, although many old Win32 app use these colors, there are many exceptions too (for example PowerIso uses an image as background for the menu bar not just a simple color). You can also search more about these colors, I think there are many resources describing these colors such as:

https://www.wintools.info/index.php/classic-color-panel-activecaption:

You can also use a classic control panel to change them on the fly (it's like using a .theme file but with a GUI and preview plus other settings like font size, scrollbar size, desktop icon spacing, etc.), called "desk.cpl" and a new version has also been created:
https://winclassic.net/thread/1436/new-classic-theme-configurator
Download the binary file from GitLab which will direct you to the Mega folder, you only need Theme.exe in the "10-x64" folder (you can delete all other folders)

And if you just want to change only the colors, S.M.A.C.C is a good choice, it can also create a .theme file with your colors:
https://github.com/Superfly-Inc/SMACC

[e-t-l]

Uh oh, looks like I closed this too soon. I opened HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors\WindowText and it was already set to 200 200 200; I tried changing it to other values and restarting Explorer but there was no change; my text was still black-on-black like in the original screenshot.

Are you on Windows version 25H2? I mentioned in my original post that this change may be a bug in the newest Windows version, because I don't remember experiencing it previously. It's possible those reg values don't correctly control colors anymore.

[e-t-l]

Update: I realized that just restarting explorer might not force the color change, but I found a script that does it using a Windows syscall. I tried executing powershell -command add-type -typedefinition """"using System;`n using System.Runtime.InteropServices;`n public class PInvoke { [DllImport(`"""user32.dll`""")] public static extern bool SetSysColors(int cElements, int[] lpaElements, int[] lpaRgbValues); }""""; [PInvoke]::SetSysColors(1, @(8), @(0xFF007A7F)) (basing the lpaElements value off this list,* where 8 is COLOR_WINDOWTEXT).

Some window text did change colors, such as the main text color in Regedit, but the textfield text color as shown in my original screenshot did NOT change. Are you sure "Windowtext" is the correct name for that element?

*Many window elements in this list say, "Windows 10 and later: This value is not supported," so I am doubly doubtful that "windowtext" is what we need in this case.

[amymor]

Any changes to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors require a sign-out (restarting Explorer won't do anything here) but you can include it in your .theme (make sure the "Themes" service is running using TaskManager or services.msc) then apply your .theme (I personally use classic personalization to apply themes) then the colors will change immediately.

But in your case (as you said the text field color is still black) maybe your msstyle is doing something with it. For example, there is Rectify11 msstyle which is a rich msstyle, meaning it has a lot of extra settings to change extra things (e.g. changes the font of Tabs) so make sure you use another theme (without editing it) and then try to change that color with registry+sign-out or the .theme file. This way you can be sure that your msstyle is fine and this happens even with other themes.

Another thing is your Windows version, I don't know how you use custom theme on 25h2, because I installed some 25h2 custom isos a week ago and tried both UltraUXThemePatcher and SecureUxTheme on them and guess what? Yes, both of them didn't work for me on any of the 25h2s (I'm on 23h2 now).

Rectify11 theme

Steam theme

Faded theme

Original Windows 11 theme (aero)

[e-t-l]

That's very strange, I did the 24H2 -> 25H2 windows update on a standard Win11 iso and SecureUXTheme still works fine, with small exceptions like this issue - and also I think the title bar colors are no longer applied, as before the update I think I had it set to black, but in my screenshot the title bar is teal, my accent color.

So I think my original suspicion is likely correct: Something about 25H2 partially breaks theme patching. I would be interested to hear whether anyone else has successfully used SecureUXTheme on 25H2 without any issues.

[Undisputed00x]

MS has fixed this issue on a newer 25H2 where text inside editboxes was using a textcolor from sysmetrics instead of the corresponding theme class.