QUICK TIP: Changing the bar system color (the base hue) under WM5+

I’ve just been asked in the Smartphone & PPC Mag VIP section (where I’m the lead helper) of how you can easily change your upper / lower / scrollbar colors on WM5+ (WM5, WM6, WM6.1 etc.) Windows Mobile devices with touchscreens (NOT models without them!), also often referred to as the “base hue”.

I’ve published a lot of system color-related information back in the pre-WM5 days (see for example THIS). In WM5, the situation has changed drastically with the introduction of the “base hue”. This means old utilities and Registry hacks no longer work under WM5+. Fortunately, there are a lot of tools to help the situation.

Probably the easiest (and free!) way of doing this is getting VJBaseHue from HERE. To do this, download the CAB file at the bottom and also download “Example themes by ZeBoxx”. Install the former to the built-in storage of your device (NOT to a storage card) so that you don’t need to modify the .lnk files in the latter, ZeBoxx file.

Now, uncompress the contents of the ZeBoxx file and copy the lnk files to anywhere on your Windows Mobile phone; I recommend \Windows\Start Menu\Programs or a subdirectory of them so that you can easily access them from the Start menu. Now, by just going to clicking Start / Programs (or the folder you’ve created) and clicking any of these links, the color of the upper/lower/scroll bars immediately change.

Just some examples:

A QVGA Pocket PC Phone Edition (Windows Mobile Professional in the new, WM6+ parlance) device with black base hue:

Now, clicking the “Magneta” link makes the base hue to magneta as can be seen in the following screenshot:

Note that you can use any color (not just the pre-defined ones in the ZeBoxx file) if you follow the tutorial on the homepage.