Windows 10 Start menu and access center do not adopt accent color

[Archway]

I have background as a solid color, windows dark mode, transparency on, a custom accent color and the boxes to show the accent color on start, taskbar, action centre, title bars and windows borders are all checked. Of these, neither the start menu nor action centre adopt the specified color. They stay blue, which appears to be windows default color. I cannot find a way to fix this. It appears to be a corrupted profile - if I create a new profile with the same settings, the start menu and action centre adopt the color correctly. I dont want to create a new profile if I can avoid it as it otherwise works. Any ideas where to look to fix this?

 

[Rapaaja]

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12385/windows-10-fix-problems-with-start-menu

 

[Archway]

Thanks for taking the time but not relevant.

 

[Rapaaja]

Download Windows 10

What a screen driver.

 

[Neemobeer]

Open the registry and go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize
Make sure "ColorPrevalance"=1

 

[Archway]

Thanks for taking the time. I have already experimented with ColorPrevalance - it is set to 1 and the problem persists.

 

[Neemobeer]

Did you try toggling it?

 

[Archway]

Yep - many times . Changing it to zero or two removed color and leaves the access center and start menu black put putting it back to 1 doesnt cause them to adopt the correct color - they go blue instead.

 

[Neemobeer]

Well all the color data is set here HKEY_USERS\<USERSID>\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM. If these items are not updating such as color prevalence set it to 1 and reboot.

 

[Archway]

Thanks. Done before; it is set to 1 and I dont think that is the issue. Setting ColorPrevalence changes the behavior of the start menu and access center (no color or color) as expected EXCEPT that the color which appears when it is set to 1 is the wrong one. What I am looking for is the source of this setting whereby the color is blue rather than the one specified.

 

[Neemobeer]

When colors get changed these are all the values that get changed

HKU\SID\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize\ColorPrevalence

HKU\SID\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\AccentColor - Color

HKU\SID\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\ColorizationAfterglow

HKU\SID\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\ColorizationAfterglowBalance

HKU\SID\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\ColorizationBlurBalance

HKU\SID\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\ColorizationColor -Color for glass

HKU\SID\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\ColorizationColorBalance

HKU\SID\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\ColorizationGlassAttribute

HKU\SID\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\ColorPrevalence This is for the start,taskbar and action center

HKU\SID\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\EnableWindowColorization This is for title bars and windows borders

 

[Archway]

Thanks again. I have fiddled around with these quite a bit, including deleting these keys and importing known good ones from another machine. The colors of the donor machine are adopted except for the start menu and action center. It is quite mysterious.

 

[Archway]

I eventually did a repair/reinstallation of Win10 - I wasnt expecting it to make a difference as the problem seemed to be a corrupt profile but in fact this fixed it! No idea what the original cause was though.