Windows 7: Question about desktop icons

Not sure if this question should be in this area of the forum, I think my question is about a tweak.

I am wondering if there is a way to disable the light blue translucent highlight effect to the desktop icons. I can't stand the look, and don't want it.

Can that be removed? Is there an option somewhere to turn that off? Or even a safe hack to get rid of it.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks for reading. Let me know if there is a better area to post this type of question. Sorry if its in the wrong place.

System:
Compaq Presario F763NR
AMD Athlon Dual Core 1.90 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 700M / nForce 610M
1 GIG Ram
120 HD
Runnig Windows 7 Built 7100

Hello Helpfulnerd, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You can uncheck the Show translucent selection rectangle in Visual Effects to just have a outline instead.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Shawn, thanks for the friendly welcome.

Thanks for the tip, unfortunately that was not the feature I was referring to. My fault for not being more clear. what I am curious about is when you put your mouse over an icon on the desktop a blue see through square shows up around the icon, same thing happens if you click once on an icon, it highlights in see through blue. Think of it as a rollover effect when you run your mouse over icons on the desktop, each icon gets highlighted in that see through blue color, and I want to get rid of that highlight or at least change the color of the highlight. Is that possible?

I want to get rid of that blue highlight around the icons themselves. The tip you gave me refers to the blue highlight when you click and drag to select multiple items on the desktop. Thanks for the tip though, learn something new everyday.

So I still need to know if its possible remove the blue square that shows up around an icon itself. Hopefully this can be done. Its just an extra thing MS did to make eye candy that I don't need or want.

Sorry, but the only way around that would be to use the Windows Classic theme intead of a Aero or Basic theme, and change the color for the Selected Items item in Advanced Appearance settings.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Shawn,

Thanks for looking into it. I look around and came to that conclusion as well. I was crossing my fingers that there might be a hack, or trick to make it go away. Those blue highlights are one of the only visual styles that I don't like.

maybe someone will figure it out.

I hope so. I'll keep my eye out for anything that may serve as a better workaround or solution and post back if I can find one.

I don't think you can get rid of it. It shows the same way in Vista...

You can play around here and see if you can lighten it as I've done

Hi helpfulnerd,

There is a way of achieving what you want, but it unfortunately changes a number of other visual features.

I take it that this is what you want to disable:


To do this, click on the Start Orb and select Control Panel. If you are in Category view, click on System and Security. Next, click on System and then Advanced system settings (note that you will have to provide administrative credentials to continue). The option you require is Use visual styles on windows and buttons and you need to deselect (clear) the checkbox. Finally, click on OK and close all dialogue boxes.

Oooo, that's ugly

Yeah, hello Classic style.