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?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
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

Was this answer helpful?

200+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments

169 additional answers

Sort by: Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2011-09-25T20:48:21+00:00

    I agree wholeheartedly, if somewhat less passionately than some of these posts.

    A solid light blue desktop with plain black font below the icons, should not be beyond the capabilities of Windows 7. It looks fine when I start up, but mysteriously reverts to the ugly, hard to read "shadow" font at some ill-chosen time. Quite annoying. I understand Ronnie's demo, but why has Microsoft chosen to cater to the clutter crowd at the expense of the clean crowd?

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2011-10-24T05:37:25+00:00

    I've also had difficulty with this auto-coloring "feature" not working well with my chosen backgrounds, even when Im using themes downloaded from Microsoft.  i understand why developers try to automate things for the average user, but it frustrates me when power-user controls are taken away.  Sure, put in a default automatic setting, but leave me the option to make manual changes to adjust the OS to my liking.  It will improve my user experience and over-all satisfaction with the OS.

    Thank you for this tip.  This is exactly what I was looking for.  Now I can read my icon texts.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2011-11-28T16:13:33+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.

    YES! THANK YOU! Tthis is not at all stupid, it's great because it works. One small tip: after having typed in the search query, windows7 will take you to the personalise desktop page automatically. Click the "back" button in the explorer bar and you will see the list.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  4. Anonymous
    2012-01-06T00:35:28+00:00

    Thank you

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments