Ed, the problem is the ActiveX controls that are out there do not work well with VFP7. Indeed, I am revisiting button background color issue right now with the release of VFP7. In fact I have been waiting for VFP to implement it ever since VFP3, but still no luck! I am wasting the better part of a week evaluating ActiveThreed, itButton, BetterButton, you name it. They all have their shortcomings, and I am finding many properties are inaccessible at development time within the VFP7 IDE. Other parts of the third party components are flaky or don't work quite right compared to VB.

The argument MS makes about non-standard GUI is nonsense. Why does VB6 support it then?

If a programmer purposely changes the BackColor property to an explicit color, I'm sure he knows and intends this color to be consistent throughout his app no matter what the user's Windows desktop color scheme.

End of rant; I develop touchscreen based kiosk applications for a living with VFP and this seemingly simple feature has been a real bug with me for a long time.