This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
I installed Office 2016 as an upgrade to 2013. Put the color scheme on grey (because annoyingly the awesome Black went away sometime in the preview.)
Now I have a weird issue where every time I close all of the 2016 applications and then reopen one of the applications, the theme has changed from grey to colorful. This applies to reboots or just closing them all and then later opening one back up. Oddly as well today (10/5/2015) I walked away from the computer to talk to a co-worker in the next office. When I came back, it was on colorful again. However that is the only time it has changed itself while open.
It seems to work correctly when it is set to Grey. So for instance, say I open Outlook and change the theme to Grey. When I open Word or Excel, they are also Grey as they should be.
So I'm just throwing that out there as a potential bug
Processes in Microsoft 365 for setting up Office apps, redeeming product keys, and activating licenses.
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.
Well, it has been a year since your post and I still have the problem!!
Hello everyone,
I've been dealing with this spontaneously-reverting color scheme issue for several months now with my Microsoft Surface Pro 4. Everyday at work, multiple times a day, I change the color scheme back to my preferred Dark Gray and it consistently reverts back to the default Colorful scheme (aka blue). Soooo annoying! I've scoured the web with endless searches of this issue in hopes of finding a forum with the solution... but to no avail (*sad face w/a tear of hopelessness*)
HOWEVER, today, I believe I discovered the cause of this elusive troublemaker! For the past 90 minutes, I haven't experienced the spontaneous color change and all my Office applications now open as Dark Gray too. Here's what I found and did...
Microsoft's One Drive service was trying to connect to my Office account. At one time, I did a free trial of Microsoft Office 365 for my Mac. I may have activated that One Drive service inadvertently or something to that effect but I eventually cancelled the free trial. When I cancelled the free trial is when I began to experience the spontaneous Office Theme reversion back to default.
Just cancel / stop the One Drive service from attempting to connect to your Office Account. Hopefully that fixes the issue. Seems to have fixed it for me.
I use Office 2016 via Office 365 w/full downloaded product. Outlook, Word, and Excel all set to "White" - and all revert somewhat randomly to "Colorful" - doesn't matter if I sign out, sign in, etc. etc. --- using Windows 7 Pro SP1.
This is exactly the kind of bug that makes Microsoft look incompetent - after working there for 18 years, I feel embarrassed that this user-frustration bug is still not fixed after more than 1 year.
This Continues to happen to me as well on Windows 10.
Still having this issue. Win 7 Pro. Come on, Microsoft.