10

In a sea of dark/night themed windows, I find it very difficult to find where one window ends and the other begins as the borders are nearly invisible on my large 4K monitors.

In Registry Editor I have already navigated to

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

and set both "BorderWidth" and "PaddedBorderWidth" to -2730.

Surprisingly, this gives me a very large title bar, which is indeed helpful. However, the actual borders which I hoped to modify remain as obscenely thin as heroin-addicted anorexic supermodels from the 1980s.

How can I fatten them up?

Note: Through further experimentation I've discovered I am getting nice fat borders, but the problem is really that this border is INVISIBLE! And this is a bug which has existed since Windows 10!

See also: Is it possible to turn visible the invisible window's borders of Windows 10?

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3
  • Try a larger scale (Settings, Display). Otherwise I do not think you can do what you are trying to do.
    – anon
    Commented Jul 6, 2022 at 13:55
  • 1
    @John, I just want to change the borders. I want everything else exactly as it is.
    – Brian Kessler
    Commented Jul 6, 2022 at 14:06
  • 2
    Indeed, this is my question too. In Windows 10 I used the Aero Lite theme to get my beloved plump borders, but it can't seem to get Win11's borders to eat more calories.
    – OsakaWebbie
    Commented Jul 7, 2022 at 1:27

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

Sorry, you can not change the windows border width in Windows 11 (I have tested on version 22h2. Maybe Microsoft fixes this on a later version).

I have read it and read it again but did not believe it. I have tried by changing the classic registry entries PaddedBorderWidth & BorderWidth at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics and then logging off or restarting. No difference. I have tried running Winaero Tweaker and tweaking (after enabling Aero Light Theme as instructed). No difference

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  • "...(not until version 22h2 at least)." Are you hinting that it might get changed in the future? Thanks for reporting that Winaero Tweaker doesn't help - it was suggested to me on answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/window-borders/… but I never got around to trying it after all the other suggestions that didn't work.
    – OsakaWebbie
    Commented Jan 8, 2023 at 13:12
  • No unfortunately it's not a hint @OsakaWebbie
    – ndemou
    Commented Jan 8, 2023 at 20:22
  • Not sure why you thought 22H2 might change anything. I'm on 22H2 now and it still isn't possible.
    – McGuireV10
    Commented Aug 8, 2023 at 9:15
0

This works for me.

To change the border color specifically for inactive windows (not the current window) in Windows 11, you'll need to modify the Windows Registry. Here's how to do it:

Press Win + R, type "regedit", and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.

Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM

Right-click in the right pane, select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.

Name it "AccentColorInactive".

Double-click the new value and set it to a color code in hexadecimal format.

For example, for a light gray, you might use: FF808080 (FYI, I picked this and it looks fine)

The first two digits (FF) represent opacity, and the last six represent the RGB color code.

Restart your computer or sign out and back in for changes to take effect. Be cautious when editing the Registry, as incorrect changes can cause system issues.

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