Outlook Calendar View Change – Yuck. Is there a way to fix?

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Hi all,

A recent change has resulted in an Outlook (Office 365) calendar format that is simply awful. Using the Gray Scale results in dark black gridlines whereas they used to be a mid-grey on a light grey background. An example of the new ugly appearance can be seen in this post on an MS site. See here.

Does anyone know of a way to fix this, perhaps a registry hack?

It seems to me that MS is constantly making superficial UI changes to Office products which serve no useful purpose other than to pretend that its being developed.

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Sorry to hear about your issue.

My wife uses Office 2019, too. One day some months ago, she asked me into her office to complain that suddenly there were these huge colored circles with letters in them popping up all over her Outlook. Apparently they are to indicate whose account is associated with the e-mail, or something. (As if she wouldn’t know otherwise.)

This is the wonderful world of “software as a service,” where they can and do change the UI as they like, without warning, and there’s not a thing that you (we) can do about it, except to stop sending them our hard-earned money.

 

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Yes I’m saving up for a Macbook Pro. I know that I’ll still need MS Office for some things but the more I can distance from MS the happier I’ll be. I’ve avoided Apple for years and been an MS person since Dos 2.0 and I’m just over them. I know Apple aren’t perfect but the arrogance of MS making useless changes and rebooting my computer with updates when it suits them (sometimes even with pause updates in place) is just astounding. Having been forced by their stuffing up of the Windows Phone and dropping it unceremoniously, I went to an iPhone and then purchased an iPad. I’ve had to eat a lot of humble pie with family as I just love the Apple hive even if it costs a little more. Windows as a service takes away the very control that kept me in the MS hive. Changes to interfaces that do nothing other than to make it look like their doing something to justify updates and make it harder for me to be productive are stupid.

But regardless I need a way to fix my partner’s Outlook if possible. We’re stuck with Office for a while yet.

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There is another thread in the Microsoft Answers forum that started just today, after the one that you saw. The thread starter wanted to know if it were possible to change the box around the current day in the Outlook calendar.

What you want to do may not be possible, at least from within Outlook’s settings. The “fellow customer and expert user” who replied to the question there provided a link to a page giving some ways to tweak Outlook. When the thread starter reported that there wasn’t anything on that page that would enable him to make the desired change, the answer was that

I believe that what you are trying to achieve is not available (by design).

See if what you need to do can be found somewhere on this page.

Good luck! I myself am slowly making the transition to Thunderbird on Linux.

 

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Stargazer

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Thanks, I looked a the thread and the page. What the OP wanted to do was not quite the same but the page given to him was useless in any case. I’m sure this is just some newbie MS developer who has no idea about how ugly this really looks. Lately its like MS have given up on good design period and are back in the early 90’s when we did things that way because we did not have the computing power to render things well.

I’ve used Linux and Thunderbird and they are okay. I just find that Linux takes a lot of upkeep. It’s fun and you do have a lot of control, but I’m at a stage in my life where I want my IT to serve me not require me to serve it

I’m sure there’s probably some registry setting that could change this Outlook grid colour if I only knew what to look for. They’ve done it to my laptop’s copy now and … They also waste a heap of screen space on the addressing section, which on an older 768 high screen leaves very little for the actual message in an email.

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doriel, Cybertooth

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You’ve probably already tried this, but I’m passing this along just in case. Maybe you can use Step 3 to get closer to what you’re seeking?

Also, check out this guide and see if there’s anything there that looks promising.

Maybe here, too.

Let us know if you find anything useful for your purposes on any of those pages.

 

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doriel, Stargazer

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Thanks CT. Some interesting info in those links some even hinting that we used to be able to do this but nothing works on this latest version.

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OMG, this worked! I was able to simply change the office theme from dark gray to use system setting and my eyes are right again! THANK YOU!

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[doriel]

Hello and sorry for my basic approach, but should this do the trick?
Change color theme
At least select one, that does not bother you?

I’m sure there’s probably some registry setting that could change this Outlook grid

I second that thought. Ill look for something and Ill let you knowif I will find something. It can be also placed in C:\Users\Name\AppData\Microsoft …. folder. Lets try to look for XML files, which defines parametres like colors

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• This reply was modified 5 years ago by doriel. Reason: link error
• This reply was modified 5 years ago by doriel.

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Cybertooth

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Hi Doriel,

Yes we have the choice of four (three really). the light one is horrible which when they did that change was why we went to grey as soon as it was available. The new black one just makes everything black and yucky too. Someone at MS should have a look at how Apple does black themes – sublime.

When I get a moment, I’ll do a search for XML files. Good idea, but then we just have to work out what does what

Outlook is one of the prime corporate applications. Once the Corporates start introducing the new release, I’m sure the complaints will be loud and clear.

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Okay, I’ve just spent another few wasted hours of my life looking for ways to circumvent Microsoft’s idea of what they think is best for me. From seeing the number of ignored complaints and that no-one seems to have found a way to do it, I’ve come to the conclusion that MS is the borg and we have two choices submit or run away. There does not seem to be any way, approved or secret that I can find that would allow these themes to be changed. The information must be stored somewhere, but I’ve given up.

Thanks to Cybertooth and Oriel for taking the time and interest to try and help. You’ve taken more interest than hundreds of MS employees who just ignore all sorts of feedback and requests from heaps of people on various threads etc.

BTW Oriel, I could not locate any XML files that map this stuff and I’m sure if it existed someone else would have found it by now.

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Cybertooth, doriel

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[doriel]

Agreed, someone would have find it already. I can find only XML files for Autodiscover setup and few inbox settings. It was just idea worth trying In the registry I tried to serach for string “color” in HKEY_CURRENT_USER, there are some keys, but nothigh obvious to change colors.
Hard to tell, if that colors are “set hard” in the application. Maybe there is just no particular place, from where the color is snooped.
The only usefull thing I found is here, but I do not know how your folder looks like. If there is some XML named like your color scheme, this could do the trick, but I think its for message themes. I dont have any spare time to play no more today.

I remember in the past in XP, you could set EVERY SINGLE color in the scheme, so I ended with some colors, that seemed like Win 3.11

And BTW my nickname is Doriel, not Oriel nevermind, we are only humans.

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• This reply was modified 5 years ago by doriel.
• This reply was modified 5 years ago by doriel.

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Sorry about you name Doriel, it was a typo that I missed. I’m working from my laptop today and not so good on the keyboard. For me that folder is C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Document Themes 16.

Given that there’s no black/dark theme or white theme in those lists, I don’t think they relate to Office’s colour schemes. I did open one up and have a look and it would be tricky to work out what relates to what. I think they may be style themes for Word.

I don’t miss XP, but I sure do miss Win 7 and I still prefer Office 2003 or Office XP. I could do whatever I needed or wanted to with those. Now…

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doriel

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I have no such problem with my Outlook, it’s version 2004 (build 12730.20270 click to run). What’s your version?

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Hi Access-mdb,

I have the same version. It’s updated on all three PC’s here now and the same problem occurs. We used to have a light grey calendar background with lighter grey gridlines, now the background is darker and the gridlines are black. It’ only occurred after the latest update. So if yours is not like the image I linked to in the first post, then I have no idea. Perhaps MS is doing a 50:50 test to see what the reaction is.

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Cybertooth

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