The Aero theme that ships with Windows Vista is a pretty nice theme, but we often get people asking about the borders and how to shrink them etc.

Well the good news is that with the Vista Aero theme you can do a lot of customization to the borders. You can increase or decrease the size/padding of the borders, you can also change the levels of transparency of the borders and their colors. Lets look at how you can do this.

Changing border size/padding

  • Right-click anywhere on the desktop and select “Personalize”
  • Click on “Window Color and Appearance”
  • Click the “Advanced” button. You will also need to ensure that the Aero theme is selected
  • To alter border size, select “Border Padding” from the dropdown list and choose the size you prefer. Larger or smaller

Changing color/transparency

Some users hate the transparency effect, while others love it. Here is how you can change the transparency and colors on the borders.

  • Right-click anywhere on the desktop and select “Personalize”
  • Click on “Window Color and Appearance”
  • Turn transparency on or off by checking the “Enable transparency” option
  • You can choose how transparent by moving the “Color intensity” slider
  • Lastly, you can choose the color scheme you want