Thread: Enable Transparent Icons registry tweak

I am reposting this under Desktop Customization as I feel the sub-forum entitled Tweaks, Guides, and HOWTO's under the support section does not get enough traffic and easily overlooked. I feel this is an important improvement for your desktop

I'm going to provide a whole series of registry tweaks that work on Windows 7 from my stash. Now I don't know whether any of these features will be implemented in the RTM version, but I suggest everyone who's interested create a folder on you hard drive and name it Windows 7 Registry Tweaks. and place all files in this folder.

I'm naming them clearly so you;ll understand what the tweak does.

They were not all created by me and I will give credit if I know who created it.

Windows 7 registry scripts don't seem to work sometimes. That's why I always recommend you save the file in Notepad and save the encoding format as ANSI. That should eliminate the error message the error message, "Windows Registry Editor cannot import binary files"

I will try to provide an undo file with each script that I post however, a few will not remove the entry completely although it will not harm the computer in any way. I will also try to provide side effects that can happen when applying the tweaks.
Since most people are using Aero, there is no to change some options relating to Windows Text,colors, fonts, scrollbar width, etc

The most important one is the use of transparent icons. If you notice on your screen where an icon is on a dark or white background it is very difficult to read what the icon is.

This first registry hack eliminates that problem.

It can be fully tested by right-clicking on the desktop, choose personalize > Desktop background > Windows Desktop Backgrounds, choose select all shuffle every 10 seconds. You'll now notice a dark shadow if the icon is located on a white area of the background, making it very easy to read.

Copy and paste the following into Notepad, choose Save As... Make sure to select All Files and ANSI encoding and name it transparenticons.reg. You need to manually add the .reg to the end of the files.Name the undo file transparenticonsundo.reg.

Please NOTE: This forum wraps some lines. It should read CurrentVersion,, not Curre ntVersion.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"ListviewShadow"=dword:00000001

and here is the undo file although I don't know why anyone would want it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\Advanced]

"ListviewShadow"=dword:00000000

This was my own discovery. In later posts I'll be showing how to change the Windows Text color (I prefer blue) as well as other items related to any windowed program..Even if you switch to Windows Basic or Classic and modify these entries, they do not carry over when you re-enable the Windows 7 themes. So the registry is the only place these options can be modified.

A word about these so-called "tweaking" programs that are popping up for Windows 7. I tried 2 of these and they are dangerous to say the least and they are designed more for restrictions than customization. One runs as a service (like we need another service running) and sucks resources. There is also a Disable All feature which can lock you completely out of Windows if you don't know what you are doing.

These restrictions are already included in Windows 7 Group Policy. One had an option to add IE to the desktop....didn't work. Another ridiculous tweak was to set my Computer to Explore rather than open. This caused my graphic program to popup and view all graphics because it took away the Open entry completely.. These programs seem to be shoddily put together to be the first ones out there.. there were no tooltips or any explanation as to what the tweaks actually did.

If you ever think of using one, create a new account and use it on that account only

Finally, in my first posting I forgot to mention the fact that our most supreme moderator Radenight had tested this for me before posting.

Thank you Radenight.

If you have any questions or requests, please let me know.

I have tested it out and found it to be true,

Guess it wasn't that good of a registry tweak as I thought

Well, anyway I looked over every item in the list and my other tweaks that I posted under Windows Desktop Customization seem to be only applicable when you edit the registry.

Good Call!