Change Tile Color for Non Windows Store Apps?

c++ microsoft-metro windows-8.1 live-tile
humbagumba picture humbagumba · Oct 8, 2013 · Viewed 8.2k times · Source

With Windows 8.1, the background color for desktop application tiles on the start screen are no longer grey but colored. It appears to me that the background color of the tile is selected by Windows by calculating the average icon color and selecting the closest matching color of the default tile color palette (e.g. one of our applications has a deep blue and grey icon but the tile background is still turqouise). Is it possible to change this color for non Windows Store (Desktop) Apps (perhaps within the application manifest)?

Answer

Raymond Chen picture Raymond Chen · Oct 8, 2013

This is documented in MSDN under How to customize Start screen tiles for desktop apps.

Sample XML:

<Application xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <VisualElements
        BackgroundColor="#FF0000" 
        ... other required attributes omitted for expository purposes...
    />
</Application>

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