How to change combobox background color (not just the drop down list part)

Question

In a winform application running on windows 7 I want the change the background color of a combobox to highlight it. The comboxbox has a DropDownStyle of DropDownList.

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Answer 1

This should get you started.

Change the combobox DrawMode property to OwnerDrawFixed, and handle the DrawItem event:

private void comboBox1_DrawItem(object sender, DrawItemEventArgs e)
{
    int index = e.Index >= 0 ? e.Index : 0;
    var brush = Brushes.Black;
    e.DrawBackground();
    e.Graphics.DrawString(comboBox1.Items[index].ToString(), e.Font, brush, e.Bounds, StringFormat.GenericDefault);
    e.DrawFocusRectangle();
}

The background color will be right but the style of the box will be flat, not the usual 3D style.