As Apple prepares to introduce a system-wide “dark” mode in the upcoming macOS Mojave, Microsoft will be plugging a gap in Windows’ own dark mode functionality. Microsoft has announced that Dark Theme support will reach File Explorer in the next major release of Windows 10.
As the Redmond corporation explains on the Windows Insider blog, Windows has long featured a dark mode; however, until now, its functionality never extended to File Explorer. Microsoft has blamed this on File Explorer’s use of “legacy UI frameworks” hindering easy support of a dark mode.
For this reason, in recent work-in-progress builds of Windows 10, “we were literally breaking new ground to provide a dark theme to legacy parts of the shell”, Microsoft added. The developers focused on changing File Explorer itself, not more common controls which could “break a lot of app experiences”.
However, with many members of Microsoft’s Windows Insider beta-testing program requesting a dark mode for File Explorer, Microsoft bowed to pressure to overcome the challenges. The results are impressive, as can be seen from the blog’s series of screenshots of this new Dark Theme.
While we are still waiting for the release of Windows 10 in which this Dark Theme will make its public debut, Dark Theme for File Explorer is now available in Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17733.