How To Fix “Start, Action Center, and Taskbar” Accent Color Grayed Out On The Windows 10
How You Can Fix “Start, Action Center, and Taskbar” Accent Color Grayed Out On The Windows 10
Starting with the October 2020 update, Windows 10 defaults to a light theme that has a preventive for setting an accent color for your Start menu, action center, and taskbar. You may notice that the option is grayed out in Settings. Here’s how you can get the option back.
By default, it is impossible to set accent colors on the Start menu and taskbar on Windows 10 unless you have to set your appearance to the dark mode. If you’re in the light mode and you have to visit “Colors” in Settings, you’ll notice that the “Start, taskbar, and action center” are grayed out.
In your Windows 10, the show accent color that is on the "Start, taskbar, and action center" might be greyed out.
Fixing “Start, Action Center, and Taskbar”
1. To fix it, you’ll need to first change to dark mode. Then you launch Settings by clicking your Start menu and then selecting the small gear icon that is there. You can now press Windows+i that is on your keyboard to open the window Settings.
2. In the Windows 10 Start Menu, just click the "gear" icon to open Settings.
3. In Settings, click “Personalization.”
4. On Windows 10 Settings, click "Personalization."
5. In “Personalization,” click “Colors” in the sidebar.
6. In Personalization settings, click "Colors" in the sidebar.
7. In “Colors” settings, click the “Choose your color” drop-down menu and then you select “Custom.”
8. On Windows Settings, under "Choose your color, " select "Custom."
9. When you have selected “Custom” from the “Choose your color” menu, you will see two new options appear below. Under “Choose your default Windows mode,” click the radio button beside “Dark.” This will enable you to set an accent color for your Start menu and taskbar.
10. (Since you chose “Custom” earlier, you can now set “Choose your default app mode” to either “Light” or “Dark” all depending on your personal preference.)
11. Under where the "Choose your default Winodws mode," is select "Dark."
12. After that, you'll scroll down the page until you have seen “Show accent color on the following surfaces.” Since you’re in the dark mode, the “Start, taskbar, and action center” option will no longer be grayed out. If you’d like to view and use it, place a checkmark in the box that is beside it.
13. Place a check mark beside "Start, taskbar, and action menu."
14. Once that’s set, you can now scroll back up on the “Colors” page, and then you can pick any color that you’d like for your accent. If you like you can even place a check beside “Automatically pick an accent color from my background” and have the accent color match with your desktop wallpaper.
15. On Windows Settings, choose your accent color from the grid.
16. After that, close Settings. If you want to test out your new color, just open your Start menu, and it will be a match with the accent color you selected.
A Windows 10 Start menu that has an accent color is now added.
If you ever in the future want to change colors again, all you need to do is to just revisit Settings > Personalization > Colors and then you pick a different accent color from the grid. Or you can simply just uncheck the “Start, Taskbar, and Action center” option and it will return back to the default colors.
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