How do I disable visual styles for just one control, and not its children?

Add a new class to your project and paste the code shown below. Build. Drop the new control from the top of the toolbox onto your form. Visual styles of the child controls are preserved.

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

public class FixedTabControl : TabControl {
  [DllImportAttribute("uxtheme.dll")]
  private static extern int SetWindowTheme(IntPtr hWnd, string appname, string idlist);

  protected override void OnHandleCreated(EventArgs e) {
    SetWindowTheme(this.Handle, "", "");
    base.OnHandleCreated(e);
  }
}