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

I agree with you about the 8.1 Icon color disaster.  What I really don't understand is how a company as large and robust as Microsoft had not thought of hiring an adviser to tell them when they are totally going off the road and into the ditch.  I work as a paid on-call adviser to a large California institution and they save thousands of dollars each year from careful assessments and input.  Based upon the usual current hourly rate for such work, I estimate the cost to not allow all their icons to degenerate into ugly colors would have cost them no more than $100.  I do believe Microsoft should consider hiring an adviser person. Perhaps, they could even think of a way to eliminate the annoying popup window at the edge of the display screen telling users to "swipe" when nobody I work with even has touch screen desktop computer displays. I think Microsoft may suffer from not actually testing their product with the existing hardware base.  Oakstone

I guess you're talking about Window Store apps and geocaching on a tablet or laptop or something? Anything Windows Store is kind of sad right now. Microsoft needs to wake up and make quality Store apps themselves if independent developers won't do it. People will not change to Win Phones or Tablets (RT especially) if you don't have quality Store apps. The 'yay, I'm running Windows on a phone' doesn't last even a week; after this, it has to backed up by good and versatile apps.

As far as Apple, if you have a specific use in mind you'd better try it out first rather than spending Apple money on a device you don't know will be useful to you.

The OS core of Windows is great, no doubt. So are the myriad desktop apps. But Win Store apps are laughable at this point. Microsoft one day had a rude wake up episode and is now fumbling about frantically like a panicked giant who realized that the jabs that were made towards him were justifiable all along and only he has realized it this late into the game.

They also need to give windows borders and start menu borders the same transparency as the taskbar in Win8.x. The flat-flat thing is really over (never started for me) and you, MS, have cut into too many eyeballs as it is with the Win8 UI. At least make the borders transparent and consistent between taskbar, windows border, start menu. What good is a window you can't see through? Windows have glass in them. Be glad.

We installed Windows 8 & 8.1 in our new computer when they first came out. I kinda liked Windows 8 & 8.1 but they have been somewhat of a nightmare; especially for geocaching which is what we use the computer for a lot. We have decided the next computer we get will be an Apple. It may not be the answer but I think it's time to see what it can do. Incidentally I asked about changing the color long ago but they never seemed to catch on that it wasn't about the color of the icon in the tile or the background color around the tiles but the background color in the tile itself (color coding tiles in groups). Actually I guess at this point for us it is neither here nor there.

Well, since they just stopped selling Windows 8, and are in such a rush to leave it behind that they overshot Windows 9, let's hope Windows 10 represents some kind of return to sanity and an escape from the "Apple wannabe" mindset that has infuriated so many of us old Windows hands.

The truth is, when on a Desktop PC, no one has any business using a Windows Store app (where is the vomit smiley). If you're on a phone (I now have a Win8.1 phone) you're stuck with a nice OS on a nice piece of hardware with the devastating reality that there aren't any quality apps in the Store at all. Have you tried to find a decent audio app, for example? If you've used Android and have access to apps like the great jetAudio, Winamp, now AIMP (beta), etc., to then realize you will have a hard time to find even the most rudimentary metro audio app. When I say rudimentary, I mean just that: forget equalizer, balance, the plethora of settings that the aforementioned jetAudio has. Just a metro audio app that has a progress bar you can use to navigate inside a song will be a major task. It is so deplorable, it is embarrassing. So really if you're on a Desktop PC or Surface Pro or similar device, you just need to install Classic Shell and be done with it. If you're on an RT device, then pity is yours because you've spent your money on a device that doesn't have access to 2% the apps there are for Android, full Windows, Apple's OS's, etc. And if those 2% of apps were only good (just good) it would be another story. But they are deplorable, bad, rudimentary, pathetic. I'm sorry, but I would love my Windows phone and even RT device to an extent if only the Win Store situation was good. But it is not. It is horrible and sad. This is the truth.