I have a wide monitor (3440 x 1440). My mouse is set to max pointer speed with enhance pointer precision is enabled in order to minimize how far I have to physically move the mouse to get the pointer from one end of the screen to the other. These mouse settings make it hard to grab a window border to resize the window. Is there any way to increase the 'grab' size of a window?
1 Answer
There are two registry keys in Windows 7 - 11 that control the border 'grab' width: BorderWidth and PaddedBorderWidth, in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics. They also affect the title bar height. The max combined value for both keys is -1500. A higher number won't cause an error on Windows 11 (Test 3 below) but also won't increase the grab or title bar size.
Note that these registry key values are in number of pixels * 15 (credit Christoph Rackwitz) so divide each value by 15 to get pixels. FYI, for my 3440 x 1440 monitor, I ended up setting Borderwidth to -150 (10 pixels) and left PaddedBorderWidth at the default -60 (4 pixels).
The two registry key values do not change the visual size of the 1 pixel border around the sides and bottom of a window on Windows 11. Consensus on the internet indicates it's not possible. On Windows 10, you can try the AeroLite theme (instructions here).
Apps cited in the tests below are illustrative, not exhaustive. To determine behavior for an app not listed, test different values of one or both registry keys.
TEST 1: PaddedBorderWidth Only (value -1000; default -60)
- Grab size is 45 pixels around sides and bottom of window.
- Height of title bar is 83 pixels for many windows, but not office apps, chrome, or edge.
- Vertical window dividers were 45 pixels for some apps (regedit) but not others (MS management console, file explorer).
TEST 2: BorderWidth Only (value -1000; default -15)
- Grab size is 26 pixels around sides and bottom of window.
- Height of title bar is 67 pixels.
- Affected the title bar for some apps, making it impossible to click the minimize, expand, and close icons:
- UWP apps like calculator, snipping tool, clock, photos, etc.
- AND apps that use the title bar to display menus or tabs, like Firefox (credit Wolf).
- Did not affect other apps: office apps, wordpad, chrome, edge.
TEST 3: PaddedBorderWidth and BorderWidth (both at -1000)
- Grab size is 87 pixels around sides and bottom of window.
- Height of title bar is 125 pixels.
Miscellany:
- Resizing UWP apps from the title bar only works on the right side near the minimize icon
- Some apps (snipping tool) can be sized very small (height, top to bottom). In this case, the grab bar size in the registry is ignored until the window's size is increased.
- Neither of these registry keys affect MS Edge in WDAG (Windows Defender Application Guard). It runs in a HyperV VM, so maybe these keys are ignored by HyperV.
- Some of the above info came from MS answers here and here
Linking related questions to make this information easier to find:
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2also, those "15" and "60" figures are in pixels times 15 (i.e. 1 and 4 pixels). I read that somewhere in the docs. these figures describe the "hitbox" relative to the window. Commented Jun 20, 2023 at 18:16
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So... is there something that can be concluded as general advice? Clearly setting the grabbable distance to something like 45 pixels is insane for most people. (Fair enough perhaps if you have a motor disability.) I think I'm correct in saying the default is 1 px, which in the era of post-1080p monitors is also completely insane. Perhaps 3-5 pixels would be a good compromise. Maybe 10 on some very high resolution monitors. (8k?) How should one do that. Commented Apr 2 at 8:26
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1@Wolf Answer updated, thanks for the feedback! About your questions: 1) regedit was the only app affected of several I had open for testing; 2) In TEST 2 changing BorderWidth likely did not affect vertical dividers or I would have noted it; In TEST 3 all affects in TEST 1 and TEST 2 occurred with the values shown (87 and 125 pixels), so vertical dividers were 87 pixels. Hope that helps!– cb4Commented Apr 9 at 16:56
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