How to change the appearance of a MenuStrip [duplicate]

Answer 1

You can do this by creating your own ColorTable, and overriding the properties you wish to change the colour of:

public  class TestColorTable : ProfessionalColorTable
{
    public override Color MenuItemSelected
    {
        get { return Color.Red; }
    }

    public override Color MenuBorder  //added for changing the menu border
    {
        get { return Color.Green; }
    }

}

You would use it like this:

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    menuStrip1.Renderer = new ToolStripProfessionalRenderer(new TestColorTable());
}

Answer 2

Your approach is incorrect. You do not style menus and toolstrips using forecolor/backcolor.

Take a look at ToolStripProfessionalRenderer

Example on how to use this

public class MyToolStripRenderer : ToolStripProfessionalRenderer
{
    /* override styling/drawing here */
}

MenuStrip strip = new MenuStrip();

strip.Renderer = new MyToolStripRenderer();

//this will set RenderMode to "Custom"

consider using this example on CodeProject as some research.

Better still, VBForums have loads of them, already implemented (in the usual Luna, Office, Windows, Visual Studio styles!)

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?596563-100-Customizable-MenuStrip-ToolStrip-StatusStrip-including-common-presets

If you simply want to chaneg the colors...use Pondidum's answer! It involves less work!