As you probably know already, newer builds (including 22000.176 and 22449.1000) do not introduce many changes, if any, regarding the system theme, except another work-in-progress feature that it's said to look better but in reality does not necessarily do so: the blue highlight in the context menus:
Personally, I prefer the old gray highlight which also filled better the containing rectangle. This is all dictated by the theme that's currently in use. Not much can be done from inside the applications that we hook, as those usually call things like DrawThemeBackground from uxtheme which supply them with the required data from the theme file/draw some stuff acording to the theme file. Even the custom skinned menus Explorer uses (Win+X, every context menu on the taskbar) still use the blue highlight although there is a bit better represented, as shown above.
Anyway, for people that want to revert to the old gray highlight, I recommend using the theme file from previous Windows 11 builds (22000.51, for example). You could also edit the current theme file, but then of course, as you probably know, the digital signature of the file becomes invalid and Windows will refuse to load the theme file unless a uxtheme patcher is used. But the signature is not invalidated when you use a signed file, but from a previous OS version. I prefer this method since I do not use custom themes, I do not want to patch the theme service etc. I basically want the proper stock theme.
- To get the required file, download the core Windows Update file for build 22000.51 from Microsoft using a helper like UUP dump: https://uupdump.net/getfile.php?id=bfe6f0bd-fb83-442f-b225-7ad7a61b48f3&file=core_en-us.esd
- After that, open the file using 7-Zip or any other archive tool, and navigate to
2\Windows\resources\Themes\aero\. In there you will find the required aero.msstyles theme, grab that.
- On the system that you want to modify, go to
C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\aero. In there, take ownership of the file, rename it to something like aero_original.msstyles and paste in the new aero.msstyles file.
Reboot and you should be good to go!
As you probably know already, newer builds (including 22000.176 and 22449.1000) do not introduce many changes, if any, regarding the system theme, except another work-in-progress feature that it's said to look better but in reality does not necessarily do so: the blue highlight in the context menus:
Personally, I prefer the old gray highlight which also filled better the containing rectangle. This is all dictated by the theme that's currently in use. Not much can be done from inside the applications that we hook, as those usually call things like
DrawThemeBackgroundfromuxthemewhich supply them with the required data from the theme file/draw some stuff acording to the theme file. Even the custom skinned menus Explorer uses (Win+X, every context menu on the taskbar) still use the blue highlight although there is a bit better represented, as shown above.Anyway, for people that want to revert to the old gray highlight, I recommend using the theme file from previous Windows 11 builds (22000.51, for example). You could also edit the current theme file, but then of course, as you probably know, the digital signature of the file becomes invalid and Windows will refuse to load the theme file unless a uxtheme patcher is used. But the signature is not invalidated when you use a signed file, but from a previous OS version. I prefer this method since I do not use custom themes, I do not want to patch the theme service etc. I basically want the proper stock theme.
2\Windows\resources\Themes\aero\. In there you will find the requiredaero.msstylestheme, grab that.C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\aero. In there, take ownership of the file, rename it to something likeaero_original.msstylesand paste in the newaero.msstylesfile.Reboot and you should be good to go!
