How to make start menu transparent in Win11.

Question

The ui used by Windows11 feels very special, but I have been unable to achieve it by using the method of setting transparency before. May I ask, what api should I use to set transparency of Windows11 start menu?

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A!

According to the link: https://github.com/Extrimis/Win32-Acrylic-Effect

SetWindowCompositionAttribute() is an undocumented api in windows which allows us to enable Acrylic Effect, DWM Blur (same as DwmEnableBlurBehindWindow()) and transparency for Window. Since it is an undocumented API this api might be changed or removed in future versions of windows.

As far as I'm concerned, the api is stopped working in Windows 11.

If you want to want to enable the Transparency Effects, as I said above, you can do this by modifying the registry value.

If you want to enable Acrylic Effect for the app, I suggest you could try to use winui2 to realize lt. Here is a sample you could refer to: Windows Forms Win2D Effects sample

Acrylic material
https://github.com/Microsoft/WinUI-Gallery
https://github.com/microsoft/Windows.UI.Composition-Win32-Samples

Thank you.

Jeanine

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Answer 2

Press Windows key + R to open the “Run” window and type “regedit” there. Click “OK” or press the ”Enter” key to open Registry Editor.

In the Registry Editor window, go to the path below.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize

In the Personalize registry key, search for EnableTransparency and double-click on it to modify it.

Change the Value data of EnableTransparency to “1” and click on “OK” to save changes.