How to Change Windows 11 to Dark theme from CLI?

I'm running windows 11 on a virtual machine to do few tests and I wanted to change the theme but in order to do that you need to activate your copy of Windows.

I don't think it's feasible to buy a license to test few things in a virtual machine.

If you are in the same situation as me and hate light mode because it hurts your eyes, here is a single command to change the system theme to dark.

Step 1: Open Windows Powershell

Click the start button or press Window key, then type powershell and click Window Powershell

Step 2: Copy Command to Powershell

Paste the command below in the Powershell Window and press Enter to run the command.

rundll32.exe themecpl.dll,OpenThemeAction C:\Windows\resources\themes\dark.theme

Changed your mind?

If you don't want this theme and need to use a different one, check the available themes using this command:

dir C:\Windows\resources\themes\*.theme

Then replace the last part of the previous command dark.theme with whatever theme you want. For example, you want to use themeC.theme instead:

rundll32.exe themecpl.dll,OpenThemeAction C:\Windows\resources\themes\themeA.theme

NOTE: You might need to restart and rerun the command for changes to take effect.