Tranparent Panell over Other Controls

Hi experts,

I read through 100s of solutions here and elsewhere and it seems that nobody has this exact need and I'm unable to derive a solution myself. So here is my probelm:
I have a form with a few textboxes and comboboxes. Since when I disable the editing for the controls their text turns to a hard-to-read grey, I thought of pacing a transparent panel over them instead. Unfortunately, transparency seems to be a great issue for VB.NET... I tried all the solutions I found involving labels, textboxes, panels,... but still no luck. I know that it's possible to change the disabled control text color through windows, but that's out of my possibilities.

What is the best (easiest, quickest) way to avoid that a user edits (or even copies) the text of a control, while preserving the control's text color?

For what is worth, I'm using VB 2008 Express Edition.

Thanks a lot in advance!
J