Windows – turn off high contrast mode via GPO or script

group-policyscriptingwindowswindows 10

I have a situation with a sizable deployment of Windows 10 computers and users who are turning on some truly horrific high-contrast themes, and then consuming IT resources because they can't change it back.

I'm aware that there's a keyboard shortcut to toggle this setting (Alt+Shift+Print Screen), but running around doing that or attempting user education are too resource intensive, and I'm aware of options to completely block access to the accessibility settings, but we have users with visual disabilities who require access to the ease of use settings that aren't malevolent, so that's not an option. I'm also aware of the options to prevent a user from changing their theme, but before doing so, I need to get rid of this high-contrast theme garbage.

Does anyone know of a way to simply toggle the high contrast theme off via a script or GPO?

Best Answer

The only way I was able to solve this is to load another "Theme" in windows. To do this, I created a login script that loads the default windows theme, the script contains the following:

@echo off
C:\Windows\resources\Themes\aero.theme

Loading a theme this way did indeed reset the high color contrast settings at login, but it opened a control panel window at each login, so I changed it to:

@echo off
C:\Windows\resources\Themes\aero.theme
taskkill /F /IM systemsettings.exe

The new line killed the control panel window after applying the new theme.

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