WinForm App with Themed Menus - Setting background for active menu

I'm developing a WinForm app that has an MDI with a menu strip and some menus.

The app has to be themable so the user can choose their own background colour, font colour and font.

I'm having a bit of a problem theming the menu that is currently dropped down. I've been using the backcolor property and set it for both the menu and the menu.DropDown 开发者_JAVA技巧but its still not changing the colour of the background nor the part of the menu item that contains the image for that menuitem.

anyone got any ideas?

Screenshot of app http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/b40b281441.jpg

I had a great time with the Krypton Suite from ComponentFactory. Theres a huge set of highly customizable controls for free. The Ribbon and the docking suite costs a few dollars, but they're worth the money. The cool thing: You can make your own skins by defining some colors. I made a few and posted it into the ComponentFactory-Forum

Good luck!