Since there is no glass transparency available in Windows 8, the program windows such as Windows Explorer, etc look a little bit bulky because of the thick border. It used to look nice in Windows Vista and Windows 7 because there was Aero glass transparency in it but without glass transparency window borders in Windows 8 don't look good as shown in following screenshot:
The border size and padding could be customized using "Advanced appearance settings" option present in Desktop Personalization window in Windows Vista and Windows 7 but Microsoft removed this option from Windows 8 as mentioned here. So now you can't increase or decrease the size of window borders in Windows 8.
Don't worry! If you don't like the window border size in Windows 8, we are going to share a small registry tweak which will allow you to decrease border size and padding and you'll get thin borders in Windows 8 as shown in following screenshot:
So without wasting time lets start the tutorial:
1. Press "WIN+R" key combination to launch RUN dialog box then type regedit and press Enter. It'll open Registry Editor and go to following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
2. In right-side pane, look for following 2 Strings:
- BorderWidth
- PaddedBorderWidth
These 2 strings store the border size and padding settings which you used to customize using advanced appearance settings option in previous Windows versions.
By default, BorderWidth string is set to -15 and PaddedBorderWidth is set to -60.
3. Double-click and change the values of both strings BorderWidth and PaddedBorderWidthto 0 as shown in following screenshot:
You can play around with the values to control window border size and padding.
4. That's it. Close Registry Editor and restart Windows to take effect. After reboot, you'll get thin borders in Windows 8.
PS: If you want to restore default borders, simply change both string values to the default i.e. -15 for BorderWidth and -60 for PaddedBorderWidth.