[SOLVED] Applying changes in HKCU\Control Panel\Colors immediately

Applying changes in HKCU\Control Panel\Colors immediately

I've been developing a color customization program recently and found how desk.cpl used to apply the HKCU\Control Panel\Colors changes immediately. How can I do this myself (in any langauge)? I don't want to use Windows API SetSysColors function because I'm primary coding this program in Python. Any way I can do this?

Remarks

I found that desk.cpl actually changes the registry (but I'm not sure how)
Winapi SetSysColors function emits a WM_SYSCOLORCHANGE message.

I have tried

Emitting a WM_SYSCOLORCHANGE to all components using BroadcastSystemMessage
Analyzing desk.cpl behavior as much as possible to find all that is does
Restarting explorer.exe

Solution

SetSysColors is the only way, it calls into the kernel.

According to this mailing list post, the ctypes code looks like this:

from ctypes.wintypes import windll, c_int, byref, RGB
COLOR_BACKGROUND = 1 # from winuser.h or win32con
SetSysColors = windll.user32.SetSysColors
which_color = RGB(255,0,0) # red
SetSysColors(1, byref(c_int(COLOR_BACKGROUND)), byref(c_int(which_color)))