With Microsoft’s new Fluent Design, announced alongside the Fall Creators Update, Windows 10 is gaining more and more transparency—or, technically, translucency. If you don’t like this effect, you can flip a switch to disable transparency in all parts of Windows 10, from the taskbar and Start menu to apps like Calculator and People.

To find this option, open the Settings app from your Start menu.

Click or tap the “Personalization” icon in the Settings window.

Select “Colors” at the left side of the Settings window and scroll down to the More options section. Set the “Transparency effects” slider to “Off”.

At the moment, this option is all or nothing. There’s just a single switch that controls all the transparency effects across the entire operating system. If you want the transparency effect in the Start menu and taskbar, you’ll have to allow it in apps. Microsoft may or may not allow more fine-grained control in the future.

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Chris Hoffman Chris Hoffman
Chris Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. He's written about technology for over a decade and was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Chris has written for The New York Times, been interviewed as a technology expert on TV stations like Miami's NBC 6, and had his work covered by news outlets like the BBC. Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read nearly one billion times---and that's just here at How-To Geek.
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