Given the colours used there are drawn from the Windows Theme, I suggest you change the windows theme.

I changed the Windows Theme to a high-contrast selection. I guess I'll get used to the bold colouring. Thanks.

Your other alternative (without coding a custom style sheet) is try out some Thunderbird themes

On the toolbar then 

Scroll to the bottom of the screen On the far right of the screen at the bottom your will see "Complete Themes" These specify their own fonts, and can at time be much better than the defaults offered.

I changed the theme to the "MS Office 2003 Theme" and the result was a less stark contrast with settings that I felt more comfortable with. Thanks

garyasta said

I changed the theme to the "MS Office 2003 Theme" and the result was a less stark contrast with settings that I felt more comfortable with. Thanks

I did this and it made fire fox look better but, didn't seem to work for thunderbird. Still need help

jimbir said

garyasta said

I changed the theme to the "MS Office 2003 Theme" and the result was a less stark contrast with settings that I felt more comfortable with. Thanks

I did this and it made fire fox look better but, didn't seem to work for thunderbird. Still need help

Congratulations, I see you have a help topic. So I will not spam everyone further with trying to answer your question in the wrong place.