Desktop Icon Font Color - How do I change the font color of the text that describes desktop icons?

Anonymous
2010-02-18T11:16:49+00:00

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit. How do I change the font color that describes the desktop icons?

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Anonymous
2010-02-18T11:56:09+00:00

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit. How do I change the font color that describes the desktop icons?

Hi

You cannot change the Desktop font color.

Because Desktop wallpaper images have varying colors, it is easy for the font colors to be unreadable if they are on top of the same color as a wallpaper image. For instance a black font on top of a dark part of the background image or a white font on a white part of a background image.

The Desktop icon fonts are dynamic and will show white on dark backgrounds and change to white with a black shadow effect on a light background.

Hope this helps.

Thank You for using Windows 7

Ronnie Vernon MVP

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-06-18T21:31:01+00:00

    CHANGING YOUR WINDOWS 7 DESKTOP TYPEFACE COLOR FROM THAT UGLY SHADOWED WHITE TO BLACK:

    If you go to "background color" and change the background to WHITE, your desktop will now have black lettering.  You can later go to "Background" and change your background color to whatever you wish.   Hey, trust me, I've been on this for over an hour ----- Hey, have I ever lied to you?

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-06-04T07:16:50+00:00

    Also works just the same with Windows Server 2008 R2.

    The problem with Windows Server 2008 is that they are probably not expecting an Aero scheme to be installed (it is a server, after all, and probably headless).

    However, you can (and I did) install an Aero Scheme just because I like it. Incidentally, when connecting to the server via Remote Desktop it will not let you change the Aero scheme and will only let you change to a basic scheme (as I say, it is a server, after all). But it renders the Aero scheme just fine.

    This may be why the icon font colour thing doesn't work too well on this configuration (the desktop default colour was set to black just as CatMParker described above). And I have an official MS light grey graduated desktop wallpaper called Windows Server (appropriately enough) that rendered the icon fonts as white (making them unreadable the further down the screen you went), 

    Applying the fix described here worked 100%.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-05-04T16:44:52+00:00

    I just found a really stupidly easy way to change the color from white to black cuz I was having this problem too.

    You go to CONTROL PANEL and in the "search control panel" bar at the top type in "COLOR SCHEME"

    then click on the CHANGE WINDOWS COLORS AND METRICS that pops up in the list

    DESKTOP will automatically come up and, this was the problem with mine, the default color of the background is black therefore making the font of the icons white, but if you turn the color to white the font will now be black.

    I only managed to change it from white to black and was happy with that, but I'm not sure about other colors.

    Nice job, Cat! You may want to apply for the MVP position at Microsoft... You are also able to change the font color to any color you wish.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-04-18T17:14:25+00:00

    I don't have "item background" as a choice in the drop down menu. I tried changing desktop color as someone else suggested but that didn't change my font color. GRRR.

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