You know that neat light gray up around your File, Edit, and View menu''s? How do you reference that?? When creating a static child window I can specify SS_GRAYRECT, and theres also one for dark gray or whatever. These are not the same as "Windows Gray." This is what Im after. The side effect of not knowing how to reference this color is that when you have a horizontal and vertical scrollbar, you end up with a small square from (sreenHeight - GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYVTHUMB)) and (screenWidth - GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXHTHUMB)) that isnt the same color as the scroll bars (or anything else) so its an eyesore... just open a window that scrolls both ways and you''ll see what Im talking about. Some windows have a box with diagonal lines you can grab and resize with... I dont know how to get that one either!! If someone could clue me in Id appreciate it. Thanks!

Bring up mspaint. Go ahead, do it right now.
Pick Colors->Edit Colors from the menu
Click Define Custom Colors.
Now pick the gray that you like from the little boxes in the "Basic colors" section
Note the red, green, and blues values for that color. (192,192,192 probably)

You can now create pens, brushes, etc with that color and go to town. Whenever you need a COLORREF just use RGB(192,192,192).

However, not everybody has gray for thier colors. You can change those and some people do. If you assume everybody is using gray your app will look terrible. To get the actual color used by menus on any given system use GetSysColor(COLOR_MENU).

-Mike

Thanks bro that was exactly what I was after.