How to change the color of the title bar in a vb.net application

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.NET3.5

Hi,
I have created a VB.net project which looks great in win7 but its awful in winXP, my requirement is to change the color of the title bar of the application- i know that it depend on the Windows theme you select, still i m looking for an option. I m new to .net , please help

Posted 28-Jul-10 21:49pm

souvikd

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**Dalek Dave** · Answer 1 · 2010-07-28T21:54:00

Solution 1

Here is some code:

VB

Option Explicit
Private Const COLOR_ACTIVECAPTION = 2
Private Declare Function GetSysColor Lib _
  "user32" (ByVal nIndex As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function SetSysColors Lib "user32" _
  (ByVal nChanges As Long, lpSysColor As Long, _
   lpColorValues As Long) As Long

VB

Public Function GetTitleBarColor() As Long
    GetTitleBarColor = GetSysColor(COLOR_ACTIVECAPTION)
End Function
Public Function ChangeTitleBarColor(NewColor As Long) As Boolean
    Dim lRet As Long
    lRet = SetSysColors(1, COLOR_ACTIVECAPTION, NewColor)
    ChangeTitleBarColor = lRet > 0
End Function

Hope that helps

Posted 28-Jul-10 21:54pm

Dalek Dave

Comments

souvikd 29-Jul-10 4:21am

Hi Dalek, thanks for replying .... i m trying your code while loading the form, but its not working, its showing me the default old xp title bar,please chk the code to understand better

Private Sub frmLogin_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
Try
Dim s As Long = GetTitleBarColor()
ChangeTitleBarColor(s)

Dim frmCCS As New frmCrtConStr
frmCCS.ShowDialog()

Catch ex As Exception
MsgBox(ex.ToString)
End Try

End Sub

Public Function GetTitleBarColor() As Long
GetTitleBarColor = GetSysColor(COLOR_ACTIVECAPTION)
End Function

Public Function ChangeTitleBarColor(ByVal NewColor As Long) As Boolean
Dim lRet As Long
lRet = SetSysColors(1, COLOR_ACTIVECAPTION, NewColor)
ChangeTitleBarColor = lRet > 0
End Function