Simple solution to change background color of a DateTimePicker

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C#

This is in answer to the following article: (I can't otherwise find a link to simply respond to that article)

A DateTimePicker with working BackColor
By Vincenzo Rossi

Sorry to come up with a simpler solution that has no limitations. I hit the same problem and came to the same conclusions as in this post. However I didn't like the limitations, namely that one couldn't anymore edit directly the days/months/years in the control.
Then I found a great solution here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/198532/changing-the-background-color-of-a-datetimepicker-in-net

Basically you create a control inheriting from DateTimePicker and add this override:

const int WM_ERASEBKGND = 0x14;

protected override void WndProc(ref System.Windows.Forms.Message m)
{
     if(m.Msg == WM_ERASEBKGND)
     {
       Graphics g = Graphics.FromHdc(m.WParam);
       g.FillRectangle(new SolidBrush(_backColor), ClientRectangle);
       g.Dispose();
       return;
     }

     base.WndProc(ref m);
}

(Where _backColor is the one of your choice...)
If you want to change color, simply call the Invalidate() method of your DateTimePicker after changing _backColor.
To me that works wonderful, without any limitation.