Windows Server 2019 Seamless Apps and 1px white border

[Matt Sliva]

Apparently starting with Windows 10 1809 and Windows Server 2019 (1809), Microsoft changed the look of an active window to not have a dark 1px border. Instead they've replaced the dark 1px border with a 1px white border with a dark shadow. With seamless applications, this shadow effect doesn't seem to work and I'm left with a 1px white border. This causes applications like Internet Explorer to have no visible border when the application is on top of an application with white space.

 

How is everyone handling this?

[Geir Dybbugt]

Fighting the same disease:) 

To get the AccentColor values to work you need to enable the color setting for the title bar and borders. 

Done with this one;
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM

Dword: 
ColorPrevalence=1 to enable 0 to disable (default causing the white border issue)

Setting this to 1 will honor your settings for the AccentColor values. 

Have not found any other way to get the old normal borders visible. 
(Setting the app mode to dark mode interestingly enough has borders - but you then get the titlebar dissapearing against a dark background)

 

[James Kindon]

Does this  help?

https://www.tenforums.com/general-support/124514-active-explorer-box-border-not-visible-after-1809-update.html

 

Show shadows under border 

[Randy Mysliwiec1709160374]

I've been struggling with this as well.  I have been unable to get a seamless session to honor any of the visual effect settings.  It does work in a published desktop.  The accentcolor did not work for me either.  Matt, were you able to work through this?

[Nicholas Staab1709157778]

I'm having the same issue. Has anyone found a solution?

[Eli James]

I thought I was the one having this problem with the server, I think it might be a general issue 

 

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[Randy Mysliwiec1709160374]

Users really liked the default visual effects and they do work while in a published desktop.  I really didn't want to change the entire color scheme just for the title bar.  So I went about mitigating the issue using a GPP and WEM.

 

Using a GPP (WEM didn't do this fast enough): 

Set the AccentColor, AccentColorInactive to a color i liked (FFD3D3D3)

Set AutoColorization to 0

 

Using WEM: (GPP cannot target on these conditions)

Setup conditions:

Condition 1: This is a published desktop (disable)

Set ColorPrevalence = 0

 

Condition 2: This is a published application (enable)

Set ColorPrevalence = 1

 

This untimately left the title bar alone with default colors while in a published desktop but turned the title bar gray when in a published app.  There is slight delay in changing the title bar color as WEM places the registry value slightly after the published app launches but IE refreshes quickly enough.  

 

Citrix support was contacted and I was informed the 1px white border and no visual effects was expected behavior but the "issue" was bought to the development team to evaluate.

 

[Geir Dybbugt]

Yes, its just annoying to not have the normal border. 
Its a general issue both for server 2019, aswell as windows 10 1909 on a normal "fat" computer aswell. 
Not veryhandy when a  user opens multiple explorer based windows on top of each other, altohough you get the border when you put the windows out of focus by clicking the start meny bar or similar though.

oh behave Microsoft! :) 

[Rogier Hoek]

we have the same issue on RDS server 2019

[Geir Dybbugt]

8 hours ago, Rogier Hoek said:

we have the same issue on RDS server 2019

 

On 11/14/2019 at 12:19 PM, Geir Dybbugt said:

Fighting the same disease:) 

To get the AccentColor values to work you need to enable the color setting for the title bar and borders. 

Done with this one;
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM

Dword: 
ColorPrevalence=1 to enable 0 to disable (default causing the white border issue)

Setting this to 1 will honor your settings for the AccentColor values. 

Have not found any other way to get the old normal borders visible. 
(Setting the app mode to dark mode interestingly enough has borders - but you then get the titlebar dissapearing against a dark background)

 

We are using this to bypass the problem on 2019 RDS. Its just that 2019 defaults to all white - not a good combo. just set some color in the AccentColor value.

[Rogier Hoek]

no updates on this issue?

 

workaround is ok but would like the default shadows back :)

[Geir Dybbugt]

5 hours ago, Rogier Hoek said:

no updates on this issue?

 

workaround is ok but would like the default shadows back :)

I just updated the following post with the information needed to also edit the visual effect settings to your liking. 
Hope it helps :-)

https://dybbugt.no/2020/1655/