Windows Vista Desaturated: Grayscale UI

Question

Hi,

Occasionally working in Windows Vista the O.S. will desaturate the screen, rendering all colors as grayscale. Is there a way to do this programatically? Failing that, is there a way to do it by tweaking Vista settings?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Umm, if I had to guess, I'd say that Vista (and XP, by the way) are simply applying some sort of overlay to the whole screen. I'm guessing it's done by rendering an opaque rectangle with a blend mode of some sort. This is only my guess, though.

Answer 2

Dmitri's suspicion is correct. Windows essentially takes a screenshot and fades it, while displaying a popup in front of it. You can do the same if you need to.

You can test this by running a video or something that is animated, then selecting Shut Down to display that popup and dimmed background -- note that the video has stopped, and when you cancel the "shutdown" and return to your apps, you'll see that the video has continued in the background.

edit: I'm not aware of an existing function to do this, but nothing stops you from creating your own.