How to change tiles' background color in Windows 8.1 start screen?

Search out one of my previous posts here for how to solve this problem for individual applications with manifest files.

I note that Microsoft Office has now been updated with manifests, so the tile problem for Office applications is fixed (for Office 365 users, at least).

I am working on an automated solution which I will post in my SkyDrive Public folder in the near future (I am currently doing it with batch files, but it is not user friendly enough for general distribution).

It (8.1 tiles) is so ugly that I have stopped upgrading any machines to Windows 8.1.  There were several other things that I found work a rounds for to get rid of Microsoft's changes.  Not for this issue.  Microsoft also made it impossible to roll windows 8.1 back without just doing a complete restore.  Truthfully, I will be advising any of my clients to ignore 8.1.   In fact, it sort of made me lose faith in Microsoft's judgments.  I guess I was the last one to have that anyway.

Exactly. In Windows 8.1 the Start screen tile colors take on the predominant colors of the app icons. This is truly, truly horrendous. It's one step forward, two steps back with Microsoft these days.

Seriously, when you had the tile colors set to one color in Windows 8.0 you could differentiate between the tiles by means of the application icons themselves, in them. Now, with the entire tile coloring in a rude and ugly way, it offsets any differentiating marks, making it far more difficult to identify the application tile/icon you are looking for. I mean this is ABC's now... In Windows 8.0 I set categories up in the start menu for desktop apps (Office, System, Graphics, etc.) and sorted my application tiles under these for easy access. So when I opened the Start screen I could not only see the rows but the application tiles and since they were all the same color I could differentiate between the tiles quite easily. I would just go Windows Button->left-click Photoshop tile. Now, I open Start and am like where the heck is anything? Are not any serious Windows users actually developing this stuff?

I will say this: I know Windows 8 has had a lot of blowback from users and although I agree with a lot of that I also understand what Microsoft has to do. But when I finally got used to Windows 8.0 (I run Windows 7 x64 as main OS) I thought it would only get better. But this Start screen in 8.1 is just horrendous. I can't use it like this. I have a lot of apps sorted on it and when I open the Start screen it looks like some sort of depraved candy land that I don't want to be in. Worse than that, I can't find anything because the crazy colors are throwing off my ability to find/distuingish anything. Example: I installed the Sigil ebook editor application (desktop app). It is mainly a black icon but it has some tiny bit of red int he middle of the letter 'S' (which is the icon, a letter 'S'). The Start tile that ensues from this is a huge blood-red square with some black letter in it you can't hardly see. That is just crazy. How they can develop the Start screen and not give the ability to customize is just incomprehensible. If anything thinks this is actually helping people recognize icons they are sadly mistaken.

I really do like some of the features of Windows 8.x. The Explorer additions, the native USB3 support, and, yes, even the Start screen as it was in Windows 8.0. But the whole spiel was 'customization' when Windows 8.1 was being released. But this is not customization, this is the opposite of that. With Windows 8.0 you could set the background color of the tiles, effectively, but with Windows 8.1 you cannot. So how is that giving people any options? The option has actually been taken away. And the default behavior, besides being the only behavior, is also the wrong behavior. When you actually work with a computer (not just slide your candy Start on your Surface RT) you need quick and efficient access. When you open Start your tiles/icons need to be there in a distinguishable form; you don't need the whole landscape jumbled by tile colors.

It's so basic, Microsoft. This stuff really makes me fear for you.

I think he refers the tiles colors.

New colors are very ugly for many apps: Why we can't set tile color like it was in win8? (for those apps that didn't specify it in their manifests http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/dn449733.aspx)

c. Click settings > Personalize 

Thanks Winston but after clicking 'Personalize' I've got error message that control.exe is not found and explorer restarted.

What can be wrong? There wasn't any errors during Win 8.1 install.