Why is the title bar colour toggle greyed out in Windows 11?

The most common cause is a High Contrast theme. If a contrast theme is active under Settings > Accessibility > Contrast themes, Windows takes control of window colours and disables the personal accent options. Turn the contrast theme off and the toggle becomes available again. A missing or unactivated Windows licence can also grey out the Colors page, because personalisation requires an activated copy of Windows.

Can I set a different title bar colour for active and inactive windows?

Not from Settings. The Personalization > Colors page applies one accent colour to every active title bar, and inactive windows fall back to a neutral shade that Windows chooses for you. Setting a separate, custom colour for inactive title bars still requires a registry edit under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\Colors, exactly as it did in earlier versions of Windows. There is no supported Settings option for it.

Does turning on the accent colour change the taskbar too?

The title bars toggle and the taskbar toggle are separate. Show accent color on title bars and window borders affects only window frames. Show accent color on Start and taskbar is a different switch, and it only appears when the mode is set to Dark or Custom, so in Light mode the Start menu and taskbar stay neutral.

Where did the Vista window border size setting go?

It is gone. The old Border Padding control in the classic Appearance dialog was removed after Windows 7, so there is no supported way to change the window border thickness in Windows 11. You can change window colours and turn on borders, but not resize them from Settings. Only accent colour, mode and the title bar toggle remain adjustable.

How to Change Title Bar and Accent Colours in Windows 11

The colour of a window's title bar — the bar at the very top that holds the app name and the minimise, maximise and close buttons — is tied to your accent colour in Windows 11. Pick the accent, flip one switch, and every open window follows suit. Below is the full walkthrough, plus the honest limits of what Windows 11 will and will not let you change, and where an old Windows-era tweak no longer has a home.

What you can adjust in 2026

Accent colour (automatic or hand-picked), light/dark/custom mode, and whether that accent colour shows on title bars, window borders, the Start menu and the taskbar. What you cannot do from Settings: resize a window border, or set a separate colour for inactive title bars.

Change the title bar colour, step by step

These steps are written for Windows 11 (all current versions as of August 2026). Windows 10 has the same controls in a slightly older-looking Settings layout; where a step differs, it is noted.

Open the Colors page. Press Windows + I to open Settings, select Personalization in the left pane, then select Colors. You can also right-click the desktop, choose Personalize, and then Colors.
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Settings > Personalization > Colors
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Choose a mode. At the top, use the Choose your mode drop-down to pick Light, Dark or Custom. This sets the base colour of your windows, menus and taskbar. Custom lets you run, say, a dark taskbar with light app windows. The mode you choose also affects which toggles are available further down (see the note below).
Set your accent colour. Find Accent color and choose Automatic to let Windows pull a colour from your desktop wallpaper, or Manual to pick your own, the two choices described in Microsoft's Personalize your colors in Windows support article. On Manual you can select from the Windows colors swatches, reuse a Recent color, or click View colors to dial in a precise custom shade.
Turn on the title bar toggle. Scroll down and switch Show accent color on title bars and window borders to On. The title bar of every active window immediately takes on your accent colour, and a thin border in the same colour is drawn around each window.
(Optional) Colour the Start menu and taskbar too. If you also want the accent colour on those surfaces, turn on Show accent color on Start and taskbar. This toggle only appears when your mode is set to Dark or Custom, a restriction stated on that same Microsoft Support page — in Light mode Windows keeps the taskbar neutral and hides the option.

There is no Apply or Save button — changes take effect the instant you make them. If you do not like the result, set the title bar toggle back to Off, or switch Accent color back to Automatic to return to Windows picking a colour for you.

If the toggle is greyed out

A contrast theme overrides personal colours. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Contrast themes, and if one is set, choose None and select Apply — the exact turn-off procedure in Microsoft's Change color contrast in Windows guide. The colour toggles will come back. The Colors page also stays locked on a copy of Windows that is not activated, because personalisation requires an activated licence.

Light mode, dark mode and how the title bar reacts

Mode and accent work together. In Light mode the default title bar is white; in Dark mode it is near-black. Turning on Show accent color on title bars and window borders replaces that neutral bar with your accent colour in either case — so a bright accent reads very differently against a light desktop than a dark one. A quick tip: if your chosen accent looks washed out on active windows, switch modes and compare. Dark mode tends to make saturated accents pop; light mode softens them.

One behaviour that surprises people: inactive windows do not keep the accent colour. When a window loses focus, Windows repaints its title bar in a muted neutral tone so you can tell at a glance which window is active. That is by design, and there is no Settings switch to colour inactive title bars — see the FAQ for the registry route if you truly need it.

Tip — pick a legible accent

Windows automatically flips the title bar text and window-button glyphs to black or white depending on how light or dark your accent is, so contrast is usually handled for you. Very mid-tone accents (mid greys, muddy greens) are the exception and can leave the close button hard to see. If the buttons look faint, nudge the accent lighter or darker with View colors.

What you cannot change any more

It is worth being clear about the limits, because a lot of older advice still floats around. Modern Windows dropped the classic Appearance dialog that once let you recolour individual interface elements and, crucially, resize the window border. In Windows 11 you get accent colour, mode, and the title-bar/border toggle — and that is the supported set. There is no first-party control for:

Window border thickness. The old Border Padding slider is gone; borders are a fixed hairline.
Per-app title bar colours. Every app that uses the standard Windows title bar gets the same accent. Some apps (browsers, Office) draw their own title bars and ignore the setting entirely.
Separate active vs inactive colours from Settings — this needs a registry edit.

From the archive

Resizing a window's frame used to be a genuine setting. This topic was first touched on windows-now.com by Kristan Kenney, in the windows-now.com era, with a walkthrough of the Border Padding control that shipped in the classic Appearance dialog — see the original archived post, How to change the window border size in Windows Vista. That slider was removed after Windows 7, which is why Windows 11 has no direct equivalent: you can change the border's colour, but no longer its thickness.

Quick reference

Everything on this page, condensed:

Title bar colour  →  Settings > Personalization > Colors
                     Accent color: Automatic or Manual
                     Toggle ON: "Show accent color on title bars and window borders"

Start/taskbar     →  Toggle "Show accent color on Start and taskbar"
                     (only shown in Dark or Custom mode)

Border thickness  →  No supported option in Windows 11

For more desktop tweaks, browse the full Windows Now how-to guides, or dip into the restored community archive for how these features looked in earlier versions of Windows.