I'm still looking, here's an example of coloring a component using CShape, mabey you could use that some how?
http://www.vb-helper.com/howto_set_frame_backcolor.html
Using the '[Form].BackColor' you can directly change the form's background without using brushes, but not sure how to do so for a different app. http://www.visualbasicforum.com/showthread.php?t=133832
And finally this example looked the most intresting, yet I can't figure out what message needs to be sent instead of "TVM_SETBKCOLOR", so you may have to give it some time. http://www.vb-helper.com/tut10.htm I looked pretty hard and it seems like this topic is a lil scarce on resources. There's plenty of tuts on how to change the backgound color of controls but not the actual forms. Good luck!