Change ComboBox border outline color

With the help of this answer, I was able to come up with the following:

First, add the following into your form to avoid flickering:

protected override CreateParams CreateParams
{
    get
    {
        CreateParams handleParam = base.CreateParams;
        handleParam.ExStyle |= 0x02000000;      // WS_EX_COMPOSITED
        return handleParam;
    }
}

Now, add the following class to your project:

public class CustomComboBox : ComboBox
{
    private const int WM_PAINT = 0xF;
    private int buttonWidth = SystemInformation.HorizontalScrollBarArrowWidth;
    protected override void WndProc(ref Message m)
    {
        base.WndProc(ref m);
        if (m.Msg == WM_PAINT)
        {
            using (var g = Graphics.FromHwnd(Handle))
            {
                // Uncomment this if you don't want the "highlight border".
                /*
                using (var p = new Pen(this.BorderColor, 1))
                {
                    g.DrawRectangle(p, 0, 0, Width - 1, Height - 1);
                }*/
                using (var p = new Pen(this.BorderColor, 2))
                {
                    g.DrawRectangle(p, 2, 2, Width - buttonWidth - 4, Height - 4);
                }
            }
        }
    }

    public CustomComboBox()
    {
        BorderColor = Color.DimGray;
    }

    [Browsable(true)]
    [Category("Appearance")]
    [DefaultValue(typeof(Color), "DimGray")]
    public Color BorderColor { get; set; }
}

Rebuild the project, replace the ComboBox controls with the new CustomComboBox, set the BorderColor property to a color of your choice, and you're good to go.

Result:

Update:

Using the following values seems to give a better result (specially when clicking the dropdown button), but you'll still probably need to draw the first rectangle (the one commented above) to avoid showing the "highlight border" around the button only:

using (var p = new Pen(this.BorderColor, 3))
{
    g.DrawRectangle(p, 1, 1, Width - buttonWidth - 3, Height - 3);
}