• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 20:42
CEST 02:42
KST 09:42
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Power Rank - Esports World Cup 202552RSL Season 1 - Final Week9[ASL19] Finals Recap: Standing Tall15HomeStory Cup 27 - Info & Preview18Classic wins Code S Season 2 (2025)16
Community News
BSL Team Wars - Bonyth, Dewalt, Hawk & Sziky teams7Weekly Cups (July 14-20): Final Check-up0Esports World Cup 2025 - Brackets Revealed19Weekly Cups (July 7-13): Classic continues to roll8Team TLMC #5 - Submission re-extension4
StarCraft 2
General
The GOAT ranking of GOAT rankings Power Rank - Esports World Cup 2025 RSL Revival patreon money discussion thread Jim claims he and Firefly were involved in match-fixing RSL Season 1 - Final Week
Tourneys
Esports World Cup 2025 Master Swan Open (Global Bronze-Master 2) Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament Sea Duckling Open (Global, Bronze-Diamond) FEL Cracov 2025 (July 27) - $8000 live event
Strategy
How did i lose this ZvP, whats the proper response
Custom Maps
External Content
Mutation #239 Bad Weather Mutation # 483 Kill Bot Wars Mutation # 482 Wheel of Misfortune Mutation # 481 Fear and Lava
Brood War
General
BSL Team Wars - Bonyth, Dewalt, Hawk & Sziky teams BW General Discussion [Update] ShieldBattery: 2025 Redesign BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ Ginuda's JaeDong Interview Series
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues CSL Xiamen International Invitational [CSLPRO] It's CSLAN Season! - Last Chance [BSL 2v2] ProLeague Season 3 - Friday 21:00 CET
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers I am doing this better than progamers do.
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread [MMORPG] Tree of Savior (Successor of Ragnarok) Path of Exile CCLP - Command & Conquer League Project
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Post Pic of your Favorite Food! Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Russo-Ukrainian War Thread The Games Industry And ATVI
Fan Clubs
SKT1 Classic Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
[\m/] Heavy Metal Thread Anime Discussion Thread Movie Discussion! [Manga] One Piece Korean Music Discussion
Sports
Formula 1 Discussion 2024 - 2025 Football Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 NBA General Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Installation of Windows 10 suck at "just a moment" Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Ping To Win? Pings And Their…
TrAiDoS
momentary artworks from des…
tankgirl
from making sc maps to makin…
Husyelt
StarCraft improvement
iopq
Socialism Anyone?
GreenHorizons
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 677 users

Fix for wierd colors in Windows 7

Forum Index > BW General
Post a Reply
1 2 Next All
oeN
Profile Joined May 2010
Norway8 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-06-08 23:31:33
June 08 2010 21:44 GMT
#1
Hello. I have the solution for the 256-colors problem which occurs on Windows 7. I have no clue if this is already solved, but I searched and found nothing.

Problem:
StarCraft BroodWar will run with only 256 colors, making the score screen look ugly and unreadable.
http://bayimg.com/iAnhGaaCC <- link to an image describing the problem.

Reason:
The reason for this is that dmw.exe, which is a Microsoft application, is messing with explorer, which makes it "overlay" starcraft. Now this is bad, because when overlayed StarCraft will be forced to run in 256 colors.

Solution:
Since we know its explorer.exe thats causing this problem, its simple enough to just start the game and alttabb to close explorer.exe in task manager. But thats harder than making a script which does all this automatically behind the scenes once you launch starcraft .

Once the script has been downloaded, and edited, it can be placed anywhere you want on your computer.
Protip: If you hide this file in a folder, and make a shortcut to this script, you can change its icon to look like starcraft


Script:
+ Show Spoiler +

REM This line shuts down explorer.exe
taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe

REM This line will launch StarCraft Broodwar
REM ###NOTE Edit this line to point to YOUR starcraft.exe.
"C:\program files\blizzard\starcraft\starcraft.exe"

REM This line will start explorer.exe automatically after starcraft.exe is closed
explorer.exe


REM Its this simple. Made by Neo for Team Liquids forum!
Now. I have uploaded the script so you don't have to copy-paste this and save it yourself. Makes. Note: You will still have to edit the script, to make it realize where starcraft is installed on your computer!

Link to downloadable script:
http://anyhub.net/file/starcraft.bat
or
http://www.easy-share.com/1910855885/starcraft.bat

Instructions:
Save the file to your Desktop
Edit the file in notepad
The line to edit is the one with the directions to where starcraft.exe is located.
Save the script (CTRL+S)
Exit notepad, and launch the script.
And when you have downloaded and edited the script, you are supposed to run the script, NOT starcraft.exe.
Just remember; its your suicide, have fun with it!
Kuzmorgo
Profile Joined May 2009
Hungary1058 Posts
June 08 2010 21:52 GMT
#2
I love you man thanks a lot!!!!!!!!4
YAAAAY no more wierd colors!!! (i didnt try it yet though, but i believe u! )
1 small thing:
Now I have written a script which closes explorer.exe when you click on the StarCraft 2 shortcut.


U mean StarCraft Broodwar shortcut obviously (Maybe u played too much Beta? :D)
"No, whine not! Play, or play not! There is no whine."
unit
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
United States2621 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-06-08 22:05:37
June 08 2010 21:54 GMT
#3
omg...upgrading to windows 7 NOW!!!! LOVE YOU!

edit: if this is legit it needs to be spotlighted for all win7 users
oeN
Profile Joined May 2010
Norway8 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-06-08 22:13:04
June 08 2010 21:54 GMT
#4
On June 09 2010 06:52 Kuzmorgo wrote:
I love you man thanks a lot!!!!!!!!4
1 small thing:
Show nested quote +
Now I have written a script which closes explorer.exe when you click on the StarCraft 2 shortcut.


U mean StarCraft Broodwar shortcut obviously (Maybe u played too much Beta? :D)

Yeah i wrote the script after i wrote the tutorial... I shall edit the tutorial to go along with the script since its harder to edit the script since its uploaded to multiple sites.


On June 09 2010 06:54 unit wrote:

edit: if this is legit it needs to be spotlighted for all win7 users

Well... it works for me, and my friends so its legit.
Just remember; its your suicide, have fun with it!
Nefra
Profile Joined May 2010
United Kingdom37 Posts
June 08 2010 21:56 GMT
#5
Excellent stuff, thanks a lot for this.
Tempest[OEC]
Profile Joined February 2010
United States417 Posts
June 08 2010 22:32 GMT
#6
To anyone thats tried this do you guys play in full screen or windowed?
fabiano
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Brazil4644 Posts
June 08 2010 22:43 GMT
#7
Didnt work for me. The colors are still messed up.
"When the geyser died, a probe came out" - SirJolt
scott desu
Profile Joined April 2010
United States34 Posts
June 08 2010 22:45 GMT
#8
I thought explorer was necessary for your desktop to run properly or something? I remember ending its process and my computer freaked out and couldn't do anything.

I'm pretty sure you guys are right and know exactly what your doing/talking about, I'm just curious as to what my experience was
('x.x)G-(._.Q)
fabiano
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Brazil4644 Posts
June 08 2010 22:49 GMT
#9
You can kill the explorer process just fine, at least when I do, since Win98 to todays Win7, nothing wrong happens.

Also, just tried killing my explorer by hand and launching BW it still had messed up colors :/

Im on Win7 64 bits.
"When the geyser died, a probe came out" - SirJolt
oeN
Profile Joined May 2010
Norway8 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-06-08 23:05:15
June 08 2010 22:52 GMT
#10
Ok. For those of you which this has failed, try ending "dwm.exe" manualy before launching BW.
Note: This did not work for me, if i change explorer.exe to dwm.exe I get wierd colors. But luckly it works perfect for me anyways

I am also curious to how you guys started brood war after you ended explorer.exe (One way to do that is to open CMD before closing explorer and launch BW from CMD).


On June 09 2010 07:45 scott desu wrote:
I thought explorer was necessary for your desktop to run properly or something? I remember ending its process and my computer freaked out and couldn't do anything.

I'm pretty sure you guys are right and know exactly what your doing/talking about, I'm just curious as to what my experience was

Press "CTRL + SHIFT + ESC" to open Task manager, now go close explorer.exe (Right click it and choose "End Process" in Processes-tab), then go to Applications-tab and press the button that say "New task". In the window that pops up, type "Explorer.exe" to start it again. This will return your desktop to normal.


Also. This is teh exact script which i run. It works flawlessly.
+ Show Spoiler +
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
"C:\windows.old\Program Files\StarCraft\starcraft.exe"
start explorer.exe
Just remember; its your suicide, have fun with it!
scott desu
Profile Joined April 2010
United States34 Posts
June 08 2010 23:07 GMT
#11
Press "CTRL + SHIFT + ESC" to open Task manager, now go close explorer.exe (Right click it and choose "End Process" in Processes-tab), then go to Applications-tab and press the button that say "New task". In the window that pops up, type "Explorer.exe" to start it again. This will return your desktop to normal.


Oh hey! It works, thanks
('x.x)G-(._.Q)
fabiano
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Brazil4644 Posts
June 08 2010 23:11 GMT
#12
On June 09 2010 07:52 oeN wrote:
I am also curious to how you guys started brood war after you ended explorer.exe (One way to do that is to open CMD before closing explorer and launch BW from CMD).


you can run it via task manager
"When the geyser died, a probe came out" - SirJolt
QuakerOats
Profile Joined April 2009
United States1024 Posts
June 08 2010 23:40 GMT
#13
I downloaded a similar script from here a while ago, and thought everyone else had it too. But I guess not, so good job reviving it. :p
oeN
Profile Joined May 2010
Norway8 Posts
June 08 2010 23:44 GMT
#14
I'll be throwing up another method for fixing this problem tomorrow. Same script, same files, just a little different and easier for the noobs.
Just remember; its your suicide, have fun with it!
Shiro)Tenshi
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
China214 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-06-09 00:29:14
June 09 2010 00:28 GMT
#15
wouldn't this mean your antihack would be disabled on iccup?? =/

Edit: Great job btw,
it works awesome =)
Kuzmorgo
Profile Joined May 2009
Hungary1058 Posts
June 09 2010 00:32 GMT
#16
On June 09 2010 09:28 Kryxia wrote:
wouldn't this mean your antihack would be disabled on iccup?? =/

Edit: Great job btw,
it works awesome =)


I guess you could just change it to start iccup launcher instead of starcraft.
"No, whine not! Play, or play not! There is no whine."
Dust14
Profile Joined March 2010
Belgium490 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-06-09 00:47:35
June 09 2010 00:47 GMT
#17
On June 09 2010 09:32 Kuzmorgo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 09 2010 09:28 Kryxia wrote:
wouldn't this mean your antihack would be disabled on iccup?? =/

Edit: Great job btw,
it works awesome =)


I guess you could just change it to start iccup launcher instead of starcraft.

That may solve it yes, if it doesn't just go search for an other script there are a couple out there that may help you.

On June 09 2010 08:40 QuakerOats wrote:
I downloaded a similar script from here a while ago, and thought everyone else had it too. But I guess not, so good job reviving it. :p

I was wondering the same thing, all sort of similar scripts are to be found here and on iccup website. I guess google or using search was way too hard
Jibba
Profile Blog Joined October 2007
United States22883 Posts
June 09 2010 00:50 GMT
#18
Holy crap yes.
ModeratorNow I'm distant, dark in this anthrobeat
awu25
Profile Joined April 2010
United States2003 Posts
June 09 2010 00:50 GMT
#19
what i've always done for windows 7 is go to personalize, switch to windows classic theme
then right click desktop and click screen resolution
leave that screen resolution up and load starcraft
it always loads in regular colors
dhe95
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States1213 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-06-09 00:54:24
June 09 2010 00:53 GMT
#20
This is much better written than those ping 0.0.0.0 scripts

but I have windows 7 and all I do is check everything off in the compatibility tab + run it in compatibility mode for windows xp sp3 (i tried win98, worked too) and I have no problems at all.
1 2 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 10h 18m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Nina 224
StarCraft: Brood War
sSak 59
Sexy 54
NaDa 45
ivOry 16
Dota 2
monkeys_forever1295
League of Legends
Dendi933
JimRising 322
syndereN155
Super Smash Bros
AZ_Axe300
Other Games
summit1g12246
tarik_tv7388
Day[9].tv769
shahzam634
ViBE247
C9.Mang0230
ToD155
Organizations
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 14 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Hupsaiya 115
• davetesta51
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• HerbMon 29
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Other Games
• Day9tv769
Upcoming Events
Esports World Cup
10h 18m
Serral vs Cure
Solar vs Classic
OSC
13h 18m
CranKy Ducklings
1d 9h
BSL20 Non-Korean Champi…
1d 13h
CSO Cup
1d 15h
BSL20 Non-Korean Champi…
1d 17h
Bonyth vs Sziky
Dewalt vs Hawk
Hawk vs QiaoGege
Sziky vs Dewalt
Mihu vs Bonyth
Zhanhun vs QiaoGege
QiaoGege vs Fengzi
FEL
2 days
BSL20 Non-Korean Champi…
2 days
BSL20 Non-Korean Champi…
2 days
Bonyth vs Zhanhun
Dewalt vs Mihu
Hawk vs Sziky
Sziky vs QiaoGege
Mihu vs Hawk
Zhanhun vs Dewalt
Fengzi vs Bonyth
Sparkling Tuna Cup
4 days
[ Show More ]
Online Event
4 days
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
5 days
The PondCast
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

CSL Xiamen Invitational
Championship of Russia 2025
Murky Cup #2

Ongoing

Copa Latinoamericana 4
Jiahua Invitational
BSL20 Non-Korean Championship
Esports World Cup 2025
CC Div. A S7
Underdog Cup #2
IEM Cologne 2025
FISSURE Playground #1
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 7
IEM Dallas 2025
PGL Astana 2025
Asian Champions League '25

Upcoming

CSLPRO Last Chance 2025
ASL Season 20: Qualifier #1
ASL Season 20: Qualifier #2
ASL Season 20
CSLPRO Chat StarLAN 3
BSL Season 21
RSL Revival: Season 2
Maestros of the Game
SEL Season 2 Championship
uThermal 2v2 Main Event
FEL Cracov 2025
HCC Europe
ESL Pro League S22
StarSeries Fall 2025
FISSURE Playground #2
BLAST Open Fall 2025
BLAST Open Fall Qual
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.