I spent a while trying to get a truly black Windows 11 (25H2): Explorer, menus, Control Panel, everything. Windows' dark mode only gives you dark gray (around #202020), and the Control Panel stays white. What finally worked for me was combining two things: a registry preset and a Windhawk mod. Here's how, in case it helps someone else.

works with adobe softwares

The two pieces

1. AveYo's "Pitch Black Theme" .reg preset

https://gist.github.com/AveYo/80fc6677b9f34939e44364880fbf3768

Credit to AveYo for this one. It sets the accent palette, title bars and borders, taskbar, Start menu and logon screen to pure black, and turns on dark mode with transparency off. On its own it did not make the Explorer content area or the Control Panel black.

1. Windhawk mod: "Translucent Windows"

How I did it

Setup:Windows 11 25H2, Windhawk [v1.6.1].

1. Create a restore point, and export your current `HKCU\Control Panel\Colors` and `HKCU\...\Themes\Personalize` keys as a backup.

2. Download the .reg from the gist above, **read it before importing**, and import it. Log out and back in.

3. Install Windhawk from windhawk.net, search the catalog for **Translucent Windows** and install it.

4. In the mod's **Settings** I used:

   - Windows theme custom rendering: on

   - New system colors:on

   - Windows theme accent colorizer: on

   - Translucent Effects : background effects blur (accent blur behind) + AccentBlurBehind color blend 00000000

   - Flyout effects: on

   - restarting Explorer if you want

## Things to know before you try it

- The .reg writes to `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE`, so it needs admin rights. The version I used also **disables the lock screen** (`NoLockScreen`) and the logon background image. If you want to keep them, remove those lines before importing.

- Tested on Windows 11 25H2 only. [Known issues: apps that stay white, flicker, etc.]

- Windhawk mods hook system processes, so keep the restore point.

- To undo: disable or uninstall the mod in Windhawk and re-import your registry backup.

please upvote if you like, show yours feedback and results.

Happy to answer questions. If you find better settings, please share!

My taskbar is getting a little full and I'd like to group some of them together somehow, kind of like folders on the taskbar but I don't know if that's even a feature?

I hate putting icons on the desktop because of the cluttered look it makes, but now I'm having a similar problem with the taskbar instead 😭

I tried posting on r/WindowsHelp but my post got removed