Invisible Scrollbar Sliders

[Guest]

I am visually impaired and cannot see the sliders in scrollbars. In Win2K
they were perfectly visible.

On the Display dialog Appearance tab the advanced button leads to
“Scrollbar†in the drop-down menu. However the ONLY thing which can be
changed is the width – the ‘Color’ selection is DISABLED (i.e. grayed out).

The accessibility options are all quite radical and too aggressive. This
leaves me in a quandary. I can barely use anything with active scrollbars.

Is there a solution?

 

[JS]

Try a different scheme or look for some additional schemes on the web.
At least some will have a different color for the slider bar.

JS

 

[Guest]

I have looked for schemes on the web but have not found any others. Perhaps
I have not been looking for them in the right places.

The ONLY thing I really need to change (that is not changeable normally) is
the scrollbar color -- any way to improve the contrast of the slider within
the scrollbar would be fine. I am not very fussy about the esthetics -- a
black slider in a white scrollbar would be GREAT.

Having coded for Windows in the past I am led to believe that it is only a
matter of finding the right place in some .dll or .exe to change a color
attribute. It is probably in the module that 'draws' the standard frame
window.

 

[JS]

Haven't tried them but can certainly see if this is what you need:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhancements/Themes/Sentinel-XP-Theme.shtml

My google search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=xp+schemes+freeware&btnG=Search

JS

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Did you try the Classic Theme from XP itself. That theme has several color
schemes and you can choose the 'Plum' or 'spruce' or 'Rainy Day'.

All of them have dark scroll bars on a light back ground and it is not too
hard to miss the visibility of the scroll bars.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the response.

I failed to mention that the XP interface is, in every way but the one, much
easier for me to see than the 'Classic' theme.

Sorry I did not say that originally.

 

[Guest]

Thanks to all who responded.

I found a solution to my problem!

WindowBlinds by Stardock enabled me to change the color of the scrollbars so
that they are perfectly visible to me.

It took a bit of fiddling to do it but it was well worth the effort.

An aside: I have no idea what the performance penalty might be, but Intel
and AMD have made performance a nearly moot point.

 

[Sharon F]

An aside: I have no idea what the performance penalty might be, but Intel
and AMD have made performance a nearly moot point.

I've been using Window Blinds for over 2 years on XP. I haven't noticed any
performance hit. Occasionally, I'll turn it off to check. Of course there
is overhead involved for running the program but the amount that is there
doesn't seem to matter.

 

[Guest]

Sharon, thanks for performing the 'experiment'!

I think that between Intel and AMD they have fixed most potential
performance problems.

I guess that it is now up to Microsoft to figure out a way of making it an
issue once again

 

[Sharon F]

Sharon, thanks for performing the 'experiment'!

I think that between Intel and AMD they have fixed most potential
performance problems.

I guess that it is now up to Microsoft to figure out a way of making it an
issue once again

Ah yes, the joy of updating. One or more things fixed until something else
is updated and... well, the cycle begins again.