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How to change the search box color on Windows 11

Some like it, and some hate it.

3 min. read

Updated onOctober 4, 2023

updated onOctober 4, 2023

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Key notes

The time of the month is here: Microsoft announced the latest Insider Build for Windows 11 with a bunch of slight tweaks in features, live on the Dev Channel.

Just like what the Redmond tech giant did by revamping thevolume mixer featureandmigrating File Explorer to WinAppSDKin Insider Build 25309, devs on the channel have figured out that you may be able to change the color of your search box in future Windows 11 stable releases.

As noted by Windows enthusiast@PhantomOnEarth, the feature is available in the recent build, but some users reported that they didn’t like the appearance that much and wanted to revert to the old style.

With this feature, you can change the color of the search box on your taskbar and from the start menu. It’s not that big of a feature but it’s still a nice addition, especially if you want to fit it to your desktop wallpaper’s aesthetics.

Though, you can still disable the functionality with a few registry tweaks via the third-party app ViVeTool.

Read along to find out how to enable/disable the color change of the search box in Windows 11.

How to enable/disable the color change of the search box in Windows 11

How to enable/disable the color change of the search box in Windows 11

  1. Make sure to join the Windows Insider Program and have the latest Windows 11 Insider Build installed in your system. If not, head overSettings➜Windows Update➜Install all.

  2. Head over to GitHub todownload the latest version of ViVeTool.

  3. Once downloaded, clickExtract all, select the location where you want to extract it by clickingBrowse, then hitExtract. In this case, we extract it atC:\Users\WindowsReport\Documents\Tools\ViVeTool-v0.3.2.

  4. Hit?on your keyboard, then type “cmd” and right-click onCommand Prompt->Run as administrator.

  5. Type in cd + the directory where we extracted ViVeTool. In this case, it’s atC:\Users\WindowsReport\Documents\Tools\ViVeTool-v0.3.2, then hitEnter.

  6. If you want todisablethe feature, type the following command then hitEnter.

  7. Reboot the computer.

In the meantime, it’s still worth noting that being an insider-only feature that isn’t out for primetime yet, you may be running into some performance problems here and there, so, patience is a virtue.

Are you excited about this upcoming feature? Let us know in the comments!

More about the topics:Windows 11

Rafly Gilang

Rafly is a journalist with growing experience, ranging from technology, business, social, and culture. A holder of the Romanian government scholarship, his writing has been published in several local and national publications.

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Rafly Gilang