Hi,

Can anyone help me to change the windows task bar color programmatically with API calls. It is easy to make it transparent, but I would like to spice it up more by
changing its color too. I know I can change the color of the 3d objects, but it will change it for all the objects and I need it only for the windows task bar. I will greatly appreciate any help.

Regards.

I dont have VB6 with me at the moment, but since you know how to make it transparent (maybe with Setlayeredwindowattributes API), then you know how to track task bar hwnd. I believe that there is a SetBkColor API, that will allow you to change its background color.

____________________________
If you find the answer helpful, please mark this topic as solved.

Thanks Goran,

But I can't change the color of the windows calculator even. I need some working code please. I must be doing something wrong here.

Regards,
George,

For Windows XP the colors are set by *.themes files. To change the
active-title-bar color, make a copy of
C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\Windows Classic.theme to for example
new.theme, change some settings in it, delete or change the name in
that file (DisplayName=@themeui.dll,-2016)

To copy Windows Classic.theme without the name in it use:
------- on 1 line ! ---------
TYPE "C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\Windows Classic.theme" | FIND/I /V
"DisplayName" >C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\new.theme
-----------------------------

Finally activate it with a small VBS which can be made from a bach
file using:
-----------------------------
>settheme.vbs echo set shell=createobject("wscript.shell")
>>settheme.vbs echo set shell=createobject("wscript.shell")
>>settheme.vbs echo shell.run """C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\New.theme"""
>>settheme.vbs echo WScript.Sleep 1000
>>settheme.vbs echo shell.sendkeys "{ENTER}"
>>settheme.vbs echo wscript.quit
start/w settheme.vbs
-----------------------------


Color changes in the registry are not automaticly updated and will
show up after reboot. To do that from a bachfile use:
-----------------------------
>$SetColor.reg echo Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
>>$SetColor.reg echo [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors]
>>$SetColor.reg echo "ButtonFace"="172 32 32"
start/w REGEDIT /S $SetColor.reg
-----------------------------

full Windows XP classic color-list:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors]
"ActiveBorder"="212 208 200"
"ActiveTitle"="10 36 106"
"AppWorkSpace"="128 128 128"
"Background"="58 110 165"
"ButtonAlternateFace"="181 181 181"
"ButtonDkShadow"="64 64 64"

Humberto,

This is great information, thanks, however I do not want to change the color of all the buttons which will happen if I change the colors in the registry or the theme file and that is the reason why I need to be able to do it with API calls.

I did look how the task bar get changed, but I could not find any referense to it.

Regards,
George.

Ok, im new at this and im sick of windows XP and the blue and silver colors, now i would like to know how to change the colors in regedit? And how do you make it transparent?....

Some advice or info or whatever would be gladly appreciated..

hi splinta

u can make it transparent using the alphablend api... Search ur api libraries for that, u can get the exact code for it....


____________________________
lOsT...