Reddish colour in the taskbar

[Bellzemos]

Hello!

Active (open) programs in the task bar colour red if I hover over them with the mouse. Sometimes (often) some become red even if I don't hover over them and are minimized - and it's distracting. How can I prevent that or even disable the red colouring?

Thank you.

 

[Mike Connor]

Click on the desktop, and choose "personalisation";



Choose "Window Colour";



Go into the "Item" box; and choose "Selected Items", or whatever item you want to change, change the item to whatever colour you want and click on "Apply"



Remember to use a text colour that is a different colour to the background colour, as otherwise it may be difficult or impossible to see.
Regards....Mike Connor

 

[Bellzemos]

Hm, I tried that but it's not it. Selected Items' colour on my PC is set to blue. But it's the red colour that I want to get rid of from my taskabar. Try hovering over one of the opened programs in the taskbar. It gets red. And sometimes it gets red also if I don't do nothing at all about that particular program. I would like to disable that annoying and distracting red colouring.

 

[Mike Connor]

Sorry, I don't know the answer to that.

Posting a screenshot of whatever it is you are having problems with is often helpful.

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[jimdandy]

As far as I know Windows 7 dynamically averages the colour information in the taskbar icons and the rollover colour used is the average colour for that icon. Is this a particular icon you are referring to or is it all icons in the taskbar, regardless of their colour?

Personally I only use monochrome icons in my taskbar (no colour) and Windows chooses to paint them blue. When an app is alerting me it paints it Yellow.

As Mike suggested maybe a screenshot is in order . .

 

[MacGyvr]

That is true...hover over an icon with more blue and you will get a blue glow. One with more yellow will give a yellow glow. It has a purpose. If it glows, something is going on in that application...it may or may not need your attention. Leave it alone and let it perform its function.

 

[Dapizz]

Yep, jimdandy's right. Photoshop hovers blue, but Illustrator is orange. The only explanation I can think of is that the program has a very red icon or your computers gone haywire... Could be something deeper than Control Panel.

 

[Bellzemos]

I will post a screenshot when I see that behaviour again...

 

[Bellzemos]

 

[ken9122]

Just a quess but IE may think that site is unsecure and is giving you a warning.

 

[jademoore6]

you are running it on a sandbox, can you try running that same program on normal mode and try if you get the same red hover color? post a screenshot after. thanks!

 

[Bellzemos]

No, it's not that. Sometimes WinAmp becomes red instead of the site - and I'm always running WinAmp outside of the sandbox.

 

[Bellzemos]

 

[Mike Connor]

As somebody else already pointed out. the colour of the "glow" depends on the icon. If the icon is predominantly red, then the "glow" is red. If the icon is predominantly blue, the "glow" is blue.

This is called "Color Hot-Track".



It works by dynamically abstracting the color values of the application icon to find the most dominant RGB value. So when you hover over the icon, the glow changes according to the icon color.

It can be a bit buggy. Usually, a restart will solve most problems, but on some machines/setups it tends to "hang".

The only way to change it is to use some other visual style/theme.

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[Bellzemos]

I see! That is a nice looking feature after all, but the red colour is distracting me - especially because it "hangs" for no reason (no hovering or anything).

I'd like to keep my theme (s.saver, background etc.), can you tell me what exactly should I change to get rid of that annoying colour? Is it at least possible to change the red colour to some other if not disable the whole thing?

Thank you.

 

[Mike Connor]

I see! That is a nice looking feature after all, but the red colour is distracting me - especially because it "hangs" for no reason (no hovering or anything).

I'd like to keep my theme (s.saver, background etc.), can you tell me what exactly should I change to get rid of that annoying colour? Is it at least possible to change the red colour to some other if not disable the whole thing?

Thank you.

If you change the icon to one with a different colour, then you will get a different "glow" colour. There is no other way to change it, except by applying a new theme/visual styles.

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[Bellzemos]

I applied the Windows Classic theme now. It's a little bit ugly and reminds me of Windows 98 but less distracting than the red coloured taskbar. If there is any other way (theme) which disables those glows, please tell.

 

[Mike Connor]

Sorry, I don't know, I don't play around with themes much. Somebody in the "Customization" section will doubtless be able to tell you.

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[Bongo]

Mike's post #14 is the best explanation of it.
I looked into the theme part of it and it does not look like it's possible with a theme either.
Jerry

 

[Mike Connor]

One way to get rid of it is to set your taskbar to auto-hide. Also probably the reason it does not bother me much!

Regards....Mike Connor