Thanks to both of you.

Pandas advice worked. The culprit was: Lists, Menus & Tabs > ListView > ColumnDetail
It's used in different areas as well.
See screenshot: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10460045/screen%20%282%29.png

Anyways next time I'll color search first.

Does somebody have an idea?

Thanks so much guys.

Actually ended up redoing the search field from scratch because it didn't seem to work the way I wanted. Anyway I got it now thanks to your advice.

Just one last question regarding the startmenu.

Can I remove the grey line in the picture below?

thx

this plus some content margins at the place you mentioned and here:
Address, Breadcrumb & Search > Search > SearchBox > Basic > Normal > Active > <1>
did the trick

is it possible to move the text itself up by 1 or 2 pixel?

right now it looks like this(top):

Is it possible to resize the search box?
Content margins don't seem to do anything. Only moving the magnifying glass at the end.

Is it somehow possible to not make explorer and the startmenu share the same search properties/images?
Or is the best solution to leave it default or remove it from explorer?

picture: