If you've taken the plunge and upgraded to Windows 10, you'll have noticed that the default theme is very light, with lots of white... yet, Microsoft did provide a dark theme when developing Windows 10, but it's not accessible to ordinary mortals! Maybe it will be later, after a Windows 10 update!
But in the meantime, it only takes a few small tweaks to get access to it. To have a dark theme everywhere, however, you will have to tinker in several places: at the system level, but also at the Windows Store and Edge level.
Enable dark theme at system and Windows Store level
To begin, launch the Registry Editor by going to the Start menu and typing “regedit”
Locate the following paths in the Registry Editor (depending on your Windows 10 version):
On Windows 10 Home:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize
On Windows 10 Enterprise or Professional:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize
At this point you just have to create a DWORD file (explain) that you have to call AppsUse LightTheme.
To switch to this dark theme, go to Settings > Personalization > Colors and click the Enable/Disable button under “Automatically pick a theme color from my background”.
And normally, tadam, the dark theme should activate.
And this is what it looks like in the Windows Store:
To return to the light theme, you will just need to delete the entry you created in the registry (the file AppsUse LightTheme) and play around with the Enable/Disable button in the color settings.
Enable Dark Theme for Edge Browser
To be sure to be in a dark mood, you also need to activate the dark theme of Microsoft's new web browser, Edge.
Please note that this option will not change the color of the web pages, which will remain generally rather light (depending on the tastes of their webmasters).
Here, switching to the dark theme is much simpler.
- Just go to the menu at the top right indicated by “…”
- Select "Settings"
- At the very top in the “Choose a theme” box, select the dark theme
And there you have it, now you have in hand all the manipulations to put your computer under Windows 10 in depression mode or work in the dark. On the other hand, the other third-party applications will keep their usual theme, but on a case-by-case basis, you will have the possibility to apply a dark theme to them if the developer has provided it (this is the case for Office, for example).
Source 1 and Source 2
Article updated on September 15, 2025 by Byothe
