Fix: Taskbar Clock Showing in Black Text in Windows 10/11 [Guide]
11Fix: Taskbar Clock Showing in Black Text in Windows 10/11 [Guide]
Command Used:
reg.exe add "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ThemeManager" /v "DllName" /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d ^%SystemRoot^%\Resources\Themes\aero\aero.msstyles /f
Some Windows 10 users report that the clock font inside their taskbar is black and almost unreadable. This problem occurs on every Windows 10 edition (including Home, Education, PRO, and N versions).
Issues addressed in this tutorial:
taskbar clock windows 10
taskbar clock missing
show clock in taskbar windows 10
change taskbar text color
my taskbar is black windows 10
After investigating this particular issue, we realized that this particular issue can have multiple potential causes. Here’s a list of potential culprits that you should investigate:
Pending hotfix – As it turns out, Microsoft has already released a hotfix for a bug that causes this behavior. To fix it, simply install every pending update. The hotfix should be delivered in a cumulative update for every Windows 10 edition.
Conflicting theme colors – If you’ve previously set up a custom theme, you might experience this problem due to a conflicting setting that forces every text to black. In this case, you can get the issue resolved by changing the theme color.
Incompatible taskbar theme – An underlying setting might produce this behavior if you previously configured a custom taskbar theme. To fix this issue, change the taskbar theme to a default option. Several affected users have confirmed that this allowed them to fix the issue.
Persisting Windows 10 bug – If you don’t want to install the hotfix for this particular issue to remain on an older Windows build, one option available is to switch to the small taskbar button layout. This trick was confirmed to work on both Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 PRO. Additionally, you can use an open source fix to adjust the clock text’s color manually.
Incompatible theme – If you downloaded your theme externally and mounted it on Windows 10, the most obvious reason you might experience this problem is some incompatibility. To fix this issue, disable the incompatible theme and revert back to a theme from the standard lineup.
Modified color scheme – If you used some type of software that changed the aesthetic of your Windows 10 installation, you might encounter this issue due to an inconsistency with the system’s color scheme. You need to reset the color scheme via CMD to fix this issue.
Inconsistency with Theme Manager – Another scenario you should consider is an inconsistency with the Theme Manager that messed up how your taskbar items are displayed. In this case, you can easily reset to the default behavior via an elevated terminal (CMD or Powershell).
System file corruption – In certain scenarios, you can also experience this problem due to corruption that affects how your taskbar items are displayed. In this case, you can start by checking if you can use a System Restore snapshot to revert back to a working state, deploy SFC and DISM scans quickly, or go for a clean install or repair install procedure.
This tutorial will apply for computers, laptops, desktops, and tablets running the Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Education) from all supported hardware manufactures, like Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo, Alienware, Razer, MSI, Huawei , Microsoft Surface, and Samsung.