>Even if he does it, the pick of the color should be left to the user, and unified across the app (i.e. done at the controls' class level), by maybe giving the user a way to pick the color just the same way they pick colors for the desktop, and then this should be available to the user each time (no I'm not volunteering...

Yes, that's the way I do it too, with a built in color-picker, it's not that difficult to do. I use a common form method called "SetColors" to do it, which is called from a modal home-built Color-picker form, and store the color settings in a small local table. Kind of a fun little project, really.

I understand Chuck's point about seeing disabled text, it's a bad windows default, IMO, but agree with Craig on the "Windows standards" issue too. Your suggestion is the perfect compromise.