Why is Microsoft making all their color schemes so blinding??

• Windows 8 - removed all options to customize color. You can't change window background colors anymore. The Microsoft Store is all white background.
  
• Office 2013/365 - the 'dark' theme is a joke, its barely gray.
  
• Everything is blinding white with tons of wasted space.
  
• Windows 8.1 - the default wallpaper is an eye scorching bright orange.

Do they even do any usability tests? Its a recipe for massive eye strain and headaches. I suffer from migraines and its really hard to use these.

Are there any registry hacks to change the default color?

 

Why is Microsoft making all their color schemes so blinding??

Although I agree with you, the new colour schemes are apparently to do with non-cheesiness. Or so I have been reliably informed. No, I don't know what it means either.

 

I have Office 2013 and I agree that the white, low contrast interface is hard on the eyes. I've looked into it and there's no way to change it AFAICT. Fortunately I don't need to use it much - if I did I would go back to Office 2003. Who knows what, if any, usability testing they do beforehand, but more importantly they ignore user feedback after the fact. They're working hard at failing and sooner or later they will.

 

The Windows 8 fanatics don't see what's wrong with Windows 8. Add the inability to personalize Windows 8 as one of the things where Microsoft took a great operating system and made it unusable for most folks. Multi-fail!

 

Windows always had the bare minimum when it comes to changing the looks.

i've always used 3rd party programs to skin Windows.

 

You can change the color schemes in Windows 8. Actually it gives you a choice of colors when you install it - I'll admit many are garish, but others IMO qualify as reasonable.

I would also point out that, at least in my experience, most users don't bother customizing their interfaces much; least of all in terms of appearance.

That said I'm still fairly convinced that Windows 8 was a bad move, maybe a fatal one for Microsoft in the long run. The Metro UI is just too alien on desktops.

 

No, you can't change something as basic as the window background color anymore. The personalization and color schemes are just for backgrounds, title bar accents etc. And of course the start screen background.

 

Thank you very much! Reading the thread now but people are reporting mixed results with the conclusion that this is broken by intent