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For some reason, Windows 10 started showing double (thick) focus rectangle for desktop icons and listview items. It is 2 pixels thick.

How do I go back to single pixel (thin) focus rectangle as it originally used to be (1 pixel thick dotted rectangle)?

This is how it looks now:

Windows 10 double focus rectangle

This is how it used to look (picture from Win7):

Windows 7 thin focus rectangle

The screenshots are from desktop icons but it shows on any standard listview control.

So to be clear, I do not want to remove the focused rectangle, I want to make it thinner again.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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You can go in "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Ease of Access Center\Make the computer easier to see" and uncheck the "Make the focus rectangle thicker":

enter image description here

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    Thank you for finally figuring this out!
    – Coder12345
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 20:45
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Change Performance settings in Settings, Computer, Advanced System Settings, and remove the Drop Shadow setting or also set for Best Performance

Screen shot below

enter image description here

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    None of the suggested settings have effect on the double-thickness selection rectangle.
    – Coder12345
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 1:48
  • Strange because the settings I posted work on all my machines and all client machines. That corrects (for me / all machines) what you see on the Recycle word above. Reboot one machine, try the Drop Shadow setting again. Works here. I am posting a screenshot in my answer above
    – anon
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 1:54
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    The question is not about drop shadow but about the selection rectangle...
    – Coder12345
    Commented Dec 29, 2019 at 21:38
  • Yes, but using the settings I suggested, there is no double focus rectangle. That rectangle (author's post) is the same as drop shadow on the text. Look closely. There on the author's screen shot (icon text AND rectangle) and not there on mine at all
    – anon
    Commented Dec 29, 2019 at 21:43
  • @John: this thick ugly dotted piece of frame appears not only around icons, but also around all the controls like buttons, drop-down lists, radio buttons, check-boxes etc. Its intention is clear, to indicate the keyboard focus, but the question is about making it look better... Switching off shadows under desktop icons has zero to do with it... Coder12345: This irritates me as well after my downgrade to win10 from win7, but it doesn't seem possible to make it look win7-ish without resorting to some profound system hacks like dll replacement.. Let's all hail the Microsoft's geniuses of design
    – sunny moon
    Commented Sep 18, 2020 at 10:27

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