How to reduce windows border in Windows 8.1 Preview

[SinCara]

I recently installed Windows 8.1 Preview directly on my Windows 7 ultimate running laptop using ISO image. Installation went fine without any problems and the system is working great too. I even like the new features etc but having the problem with its Windows padding. Just like Windows 8, the borders of windows explorer or even browsers take huge space. As i am having a 19 inch monitor, it is creating me a problem while working with multiple windows.

So i wanted to know if there is any way we can reduce the windows padding borders in 8.1 Preview? No matter any registry tweaking or with any third party apps but i have to do this. Please help.

[Fella]

Well i am not sure whether this will work for you or not but when i had the problem with Windows 8, the following steps helped me to decrease the windows padding:

Yeah, that’s correct. In windows 7 by going to "Advanced appearance settings" we were able to increase/decrease the windows padding but there is no such option provided in windows 8. Hence you will need to make a small change in one of the registry key as mentioned below:

• Go to Start > type REGEDIT > press Enter
• Now navigate to the following key in the registry:
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
• On the right pane you will see keys named BorderWidth and PaddedBorderWidth.
• Double click and change their values from -15 to 0 and -60 to 0
• Exit the registry.

Better restart the windows to effect the changes. That’s it.

Let us know if it works.

[SinCara]

Nope, that doesn’t seems to be working with Windows 8.1. Any other help please?

[Maq.H]

Hello SinCara,

It was obvious those steps are never going to work on Windows 8.1 because the operating system is changed. Also let me tell you that you should never play with registries just to take a chance or testing purpose because it may even damage your system completely and the only fix for the same is to clean re-install which will result in data lose.

Here is the correct method of decreasing Windows padding borders in Windows 8.1 Preview:

• Go to Start, press Win+R and > type REGEDIT > press Enter
• Navigate to the following key in the registry:
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
• Here you will find the keys on the right pane saying ‘BorderWidth’ and “PaddedBorderWidth”
• Double click both of them and change their value to -2

Exit the registry and restart the system to effect the changes. Now see the difference.

[SinCara]

Thank you very much for such a simple and working steps Maq. This works fine with Windows 8.1. Now my Windows borders looks good. Appreciated.