Windows 8.1.double.bleh

Windows screen had been looking shabby,  menu items would turn invisible under the cursor, title bars were pure black, with no title.  I had to Google to find the the color controls.  A swipe, a click and I was informed the screen was in high contrast mode and nothing could be changed. 
   Back to Google.  I found an obscure workaround, I tried it, and it worked.  Dunno how the screen got into High Contrast mode, and M$'s failure to provide an button to turn it off is inexcusable.  Anyhow the appearance shaped up a lot, and I was able to select the classic windows color scheme.  The 8.1 color settings are feeble compared to XP's.  XP let you set the color, text color, font, font size of every object on the screen, background, title bar, border, buttons, ordinary text, emphasis color (pushed button color), selected object color.  For instance you could make the selected menu bar item turn bright red.  8.1 is not as good, you only get to change background and title bar, nothing else.  So I have blue background and light blue title bar and border.  I'm stuck with brown close buttons on a light blue title bar.  Tasteful that is.