As you may already know, Windows 10 Anniversary Update, formerly known as the Redstone 1 update, is expected to be released this summer. It has come to our knowledge that Microsoft is going to include a Dark Theme for apps and settings with this Update. The dark theme is already possible in Windows 10 so our guess is that they will simply provide a user interface to enable it so you won't need any Registry hacks or apps to enable it.
There will a be new option to toggle it in Settings. Microsoft could add it to the Personalization or Ease of Access section of the Settings app. Once enabled, it will change the appearance of Universal apps and Settings from the default light gray color to dark black. The accent color will remain unchanged:
As mentioned above, the ability to turn on the dark theme is not new to Windows 10 Anniversary Update. It exists in the operating system for a long time, however, currently it does not have a UI option to enable it easily. To enable it in current builds of Windows 10, you can use Winaero Tweaker:
Alternatively, you can enable the dark theme using the appropriate Registry tweaks. The following article describe the process in detail:
Enable the dark theme for Settings and Modern apps in Windows 10
Besides this change, other interesting user interface changes planned for Windows 10 Anniversary Update are the Card UI in Action Center, notification area changes to Action Center's icon, taskbar icon badges and the new Start menu.
It is very interesting that Microsoft finally decided to add new options to the Settings app and to Windows 10's most used UI. Users who like a darker appearance should welcome this change. What about you? Which theme - light or dark - do you prefer for daily use?
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I wish they implement this dark feature in windows file explorer also.
I concur. Although I absolutely prefer dark themes to light ones, I am not currently using the Windows 10 dark theme as I don’t like some parts of the OS being dark and others light. I like consistency and uniformity. In other words, either all white or (hopefully) all dark, not half-baked implementations.
You can, of course, use a third-party dark theme for File Explorer, but to my best knowledge, all of those will either leave the ribbon white or disable it altogether.
Winaero has been a great help in my effort to create some semblance of Windows Classic Theme. It’s frustrating that after several months of effort trying to create a format I loved that Microsoft will make it mandatory that I accept their anniversary “garbage”.
Enough!
The net becomes more irrelevant to me. The monthly charges are even more discouraging. The software that worked fine in XP are all I need to continue what I do. And in the end I will stop worrying about future Microsoft exploits and just reinstall what worked fine for me before I let myself believe that Windows 8 or 10 was somehow a better deal.