how do I change font color for desktop icons

Original Title: Font colors

how do I change font color for desktop icons in windows 10?

Replies (8) 

Thank you for being a part of Windows 10.

I appreciate you for providing details about the issue and we are happy to help you.

Try the following steps to change the color:

1. Type color settings in the search bar and click on Color settings.
2. Click on the Color from the left pane.
3. Select the color of your choice under the Choose your accent color and check if it helps.

Reference: Refer to the following Microsoft article on Windows 10 help & how-to.

Kindly let us know if you need any further assistance with Windows. We are glad to assist you.

39 people found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Umm this does not change the desktop Icon font, this only changes the Window pane color.

I have a white background photo, and my desktop icon font color is also white, hence making them impossible to read.

How do I change the Desktop Icons Font Color.

85 people found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Thank you for keeping us updated.

I would request you to refer to information provided in the thread link below.

Hope this helps.

4 people found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

I think I’ve figured it out.

In Windows 7.. at least.. Right Click on a blank area on your desktop sceen.

Click on last item «Personalize»

On this screen «Windows Color and Appearance». go down to the «Item»

window and scroll to have «Desktop» displayed in the window.

To the Right you will see «Color 1».. and a square with a color .. or white.

If you want a dark colored font. now listen carefully. click the black area

and select a LIGHT color.

Try WHITE for starters.

Now go to your desktop and the font color should be black.

I haven’t tried other colors. Have fun!!

28 people found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Really Nirajan? You’re going to link him to another «solution» that does not even apply to the question he asked? He clearly said Windows 10, not windows 7. This is why it’s so frustrating posting on these forums.

RogerDickey, I (like millions of others) have had the same issue. In windows 10 the desktop icon font is «dynamic» which means it’s automatically chosen based on the color of your background image. Windows samples a color (from which part, I’m not entirely positive) from your desktop background and then automatically chooses the color to use for font. This is ridiculous for SO many obvious reasons, main one being it nearly always chooses the exact same color as your wallpaper. Thanks Microsoft. At least in previous versions of windows, when font color was automatically chosen, it would apply a slight drop shadow to make it visible against same-color wallpapers. Not the case with windows 10, it seems.

What you’ll have to do, is right-click your desktop background, and select Personalize.

Then, change your background type from «Picture» to «Solid Color». Choose Orange (this will change your icon font to black). Then, immediately change your desktop background back to Picture, selecting your wallpaper of choice. The color should remain black now. Worked for me, hopefully it works for you too!

Icon text color windows

This forum has migrated to Microsoft Q&A. Visit Microsoft Q&A to post new questions.

Answered by:

Question

I have two PC’s, both running Windows 8.1

This question does not pertain to Windows 7 or earlier versions of the Windows Operating System.

On the 1st PC, the text displayed under the icons on the Desktop is completely black with no shadows.

On the 2nd PC the text displayed under the icons on the Desktop is white with a black shadow, even when the background color is solid white!

I want to change the color of the icon text on the 2nd PC to a solid black, as is present on the 1st PC.

I have been through the following with no success:

— Changed all personalization settings by right clicking and selecting Personalization on the desktop.

— Ran Regedit and tried changing, and comparing the Color Settings between the two PC’s, under:

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Control Panel, Colors
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Control Panel, Desktop, Colors
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Control Panel, Desktop, WindowMetrics

Within the Control Panel I have selected System, Advanced System Settings, Advanced, Performance, Visual Effects where I unchecked the «Use Drop Shadows for icon labels on the desktop». I verified that the ListViewShadow is being changed using Regedit at HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Explorer, Advanced yet there is still no affect upon the Desktop screen, even when rebooted. I also tried changing ListViewShadow directly in the registry, again with no affect.

I have read all of the similar threads that I could find on the Internet but nothing appears to work.

I would appreciate any answers, but please don’t direct me to another thread that is for an earlier version of Windows or for which there are no specific answers pertaining to changing the color of the icon text in Windows 8.1.

Icon text color windows

This forum has migrated to Microsoft Q&A. Visit Microsoft Q&A to post new questions.

Asked by:

Question

Long ago in the great days of Windows XP I found that my preferred desktop was a light, plain background with clear black text for the icons. Then in the best tradition of Microsoft knows best it was decided that users could no longer be allowed to select the text colour. Stupid users (ie all of them) might choose a colour and background combination which made the text invisible. Hence it was decreed that henceforth there would be just one text colour for all — white with a black edge.

As I prefer a light plain background the official text colour makes my eyes hurt but fortunately there was a loophole. Set the background to orange, the text changed to black and it stayed that way after you changed back to your usual background. Tonight my desktop text changed to the ordained colour for no apparent reason and I discovered that the loophole no longer works (not even after turning shadows off). Clearly the Gods of Microsoft discovered the peasants were not following the one true way and put a stop to their blasphemy.

If anyone can tell me how to get back to clear black desktop icon text on Build 1803 I would be immensely grateful.

Icon text color windows

This forum has migrated to Microsoft Q&A. Visit Microsoft Q&A to post new questions.

Asked by:

Question

• Changed type Michael_LS Monday, August 17, 2015 9:44 AM
• Changed type Michael_LS Monday, August 17, 2015 9:45 AM
• Changed type Michael_LS Monday, August 17, 2015 9:47 AM feedback
• Changed type Carey Frisch MVP Friday, March 16, 2018 10:16 PM Question

All replies

• Proposed as answer by Greg Deckler (Fusion Alliance) MVP Saturday, August 8, 2015 6:20 PM

Thanks for your feedback.

I suspect there would be coming updates that make more configuration part available to manage customizations as user prefer.

I installed Windows 10 since it start the preview, and noticed the changes with the customization.

We may submit suggestions/feedback using the built-in Feedback Tool if we like.

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, and unmark the answers if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.

Worked great for me. Thanks!

I TOTALLY AGREE. WTF IS MS DOING MAKING WINDOWS HARDER AND HARDER TO UNDERSTAND AND CONFIGURE, AND ALLOVER LESS LOGIC USED. ARGGH

If Linux hadn’t been so overcomplicated I would have gone that way, but when I bought my MSI Gaming laptop, I WAS NOT ALLOWE TO NOT PAY FOR A WINDOWS LICENSE.

Anyone wanna join me in creating a new user friendly functioning OS? And a totally secure hardware layer from networking to browsing?

Wow, it has been 2 years since the first post on the need to change the desktop icon’s font colors. It is ridiculous! The white with the black shadow thing has been irritating my eyes lately, and I figured it would be an easy thing to do right? WHY HAS MS TAKEN THIS OPTION OF CHANGING FONT COLORS AWAY!? We need it, MS! Give it back!

MS try to show they know best what users (and mostly admins) should want or not.

Are they stupid or what?

MS, divide Windows 10 strictly to tablet mode and desktop mode. There is no other way. Win7 was the last «reasonable» system.

I found this answer on another forum.

Go to the desktop personalisation settings and change the background to a solid colour instead of a picture. Choose the colour ORANGE. This will force the text to be black. Change the background back to your original picture. The text will still be black.

Windows doesn’t want you to do this but we’ve fooled it !

My background picture is very pale and I was having to angle the laptop screen very carefully to be able to read the text at all. I’ve just done this and it works for me. I just hope the change sticks.

Thanks very much to DavidPostill on the superuser.com forum.

Google Iconoid. It’s a small app that allows you to change the font color on desktop icons. works well for me. There is a work around posted earlier here.

We are supposed to be able to mark posts that answer the original question. I’ve yet to figure out how to do that. Very Microsoft way of doing things.

I agree. Ig I had know I would have never changed to 10 or moved on to something else.

Why haven’t they fix it I wonder?

I dont get that option in my version of windows 10 version 1703; I get to choose the nightlight and schedule and the size from 100 to 500%, but nothing else. Do you have a different version or am I not looking in the right place? I cant see in this thing. starting to hate it.

Please do this MS. White on White is ridiculous. Make these changes for the user!

« It’s now June 2018 — problem still does not appear to be fixed.»

Don’t hold your breath. MS ignores the world while collecting millions of dollars from us.

I tried Iconoid and it didn’t change my icon colors. Windows 10 Home. Any ideas? Thanks.

I’ve had some luck with getting black text with a light picture background. It involved the following:

1. Right-click ‘This PC’ on Desktop or in the Navigation Pane of Explorer -> Select ‘Properties‘
2. Click the ‘Advanced System Settings‘ link
3. On the Advanced tab of the System settings dialog, click ‘Settings. ‘ in the Performance section
4. Clear the checkbox for ‘Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop’
5. Select a solid background color of white.
6. Then select background wallpaper.

This gives me black fonts on startup/login. Occasionally, it reverts to white with drop shadows, but a restart of Explorer fixes this. I have a shortcut on my Desktop with the following target: