How to change the windows 10 default color picker

Question

Is it even possible to change the default color picker windows uses?

There are some use cases where windows starts up its build in color picker and this does not support hex values in a case where I do need to use it.

I am not looking for any product where I can pick a hex color, there are 100s of those on the internet, I am looking for a way change the windows default color picker dialogue.

This is what it looks like for those that aren't familiar with it:

You can get to it from Paint's "Add Colors" button. It's also used by many third party applications. e.g. WinMerge.

Answer 1

It is possible to replace the default color picker of Windows. This involves hooking the Windows Common Dialog API ChooseColor function.

There was one guy that that I know of that created such a commercial color picker with an eternally free trial version. Unfortunately, you can't purchase the application anymore because its developer is out of business. If you want, you can download and install only the trial version of the program which is free of charge.

The original website of the developer is still available on the Wayback Machine: Jovian Color Picker, but you cannot download the product from there.

The product itself still floats around the Web and even still works on Windows 10, as tested with a 32-bit application.

You may get it from the Software Informer website.

For a programmer, here are some resources for getting started on creating Windows hooks:

• Windows Hooks
• API hooking
• Windows API Hooking Tutorial (Example with DLL Injection)