Regedit - change highlight color used with 'Find'

[HCHTech]

This is one of those perennial problems that finally bothered me enough to search for an answer. When you bring up Regedit and do a find, some computers have a barely visible highlight for the found text in the left-hand pane. Note that this is a different color than is used when you manually highlight a key or DWord by clicking on it. This isn't universal, but I run into it frequently - especially when working remotely. I was working on a Server (2012R2) this morning remotely, and the highlight was invisible for all intents and purposes. I had to look at the right-hand pane to note the content, then randomly click on keys in the left pane to find which key I was actually looking at. Not impossible but damned frustrating. It doesn't help that sometimes the answer is the bottom key shown in that pane, sometimes, it's the first key BELOW the bottom-most key shown, and sometimes, it's in the middle of the pane.

So I went to the google to see how this could be changed or which color in the Windows scheme was used for this purpose, but to my surprise, I came up empty. Want to change the color used when you manually highlight a key - easy. But for some reason, Regedit must use its own internal color for the find routine, and it doesn't look like that is changeable. Frustration of the day, just wanted to vent!

 

[GTP]

I feel your frustration because I too have great dificulty in locating the highlighted key.
I have tried 3rd party Registry Editors with varing degrees of success.
It would be nice to be able to make it darker though.

 

[britechguy]

Any chance this color is controlled by a registry key itself?

I've had to tweak registry keys before to change highlight colors in certain programs for my visually-impaired clients.

Not that these articles are necessarily directly applicable to the exact question, but show the principle for various things, and may point the way to finding a registry key that Regedit uses:

Redirecting

Change Selection and Highight Colors in Windows

In case you want to make all window elements the same color

news.softpedia.com

change Windows colors in registry

social.technet.microsoft.com

 

[HCHTech]

Any chance this color is controlled by a registry key itself?

I had this thought - it's a bit meta, but if the answer exists, this is probably it. I'll have to do some trolling through the registry to see if I can find anything.

 

[britechguy]

And if you do eventually find "the magic registry key" please do report back. As you've already seen, you're not the only one who'd love to change the color!

 

[GTP]

I've just about "foo'd my Google" lol
I cant find anything about how to change the highlight colour.
Maybe there's a member on Technibble that has connections to the "Microsoft Gods of all things Windows" that can enlighten us?

 

[britechguy]

I've actually written to someone on one of the blind tech groups who I know well who may have some pretty direct connections to "Microsoft Gods of All Things Windows" and have described the request and asked him to make inquiries if he knows of such a god for regedit.

I'll report back on what I hear from him.

 

[britechguy]

Response from my contact: I sent a DM via Twitter to a member of Windows Shell team, asking her regarding who to contact regarding Windows Registry work, specifically highlight color.

 

[HCHTech]

Wow, awesome! I'm thinking we might actually get to the bottom of this now. Great example of the value of this board.

 

[britechguy]

@HCHTech: I'm not counting my chickens until they're hatched, though the news was at least a step forward.

 

[HCHTech]

I had this thought - it's a bit meta, but if the answer exists, this is probably it. I'll have to do some trolling through the registry to see if I can find anything.

And no dice on this. I searched through pretty thoroughly, found no real "settings" for regedit other than storage of the last key opened, as that is where regedit starts on a new open. On to other pursuits!