We've written previously about how to set the Office 2007 color scheme away from that awful default blue, but you can also set it with a quick registry hack or even via group policy on your network, so we'll cover that here. Of course it's much simpler to just set the color scheme using the GUI, but if you are like me you save a list of registry hacks that you apply to all new machines, so it still comes in handy. Manual Registry Hack Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common
Find the key on the right-hand side called Theme and set it to one of these values, depending on the color you want:
- Blue: 1
- Silver: 2
- Black: 3
That's all there is to it. Using a Group Policy Template If you are on a corporate network and want to set the color across all the computers on your network, you can use this custom ADM template for Group Policy, created by our excellent reader Stephen.
CLASS USER
CATEGORY "Custom Office 2007 Config"
POLICY "Color Scheme"
KEYNAME "Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common"
EXPLAIN "Allows you to control the Office 2007 Colour Scheme."
PART "Pick the colour from the list" TEXT
END PART
PART "Color" DROPDOWNLIST
REQUIRED
VALUENAME "Theme"
ITEMLIST
NAME "Blue" VALUE NUMERIC 1
NAME "Silver" VALUE NUMERIC 2
NAME "Black" VALUE NUMERIC 3
END ITEMLIST
END PART
END POLICY
END CATEGORY
I'm just assuming that you know how to import this if you are an IT guy. Downloadable Registry Hack Simply download, extract, and then double-click on the .reg file with the color that you want. Download SetOffice2007Color registry hacks