This short but detailed tutorial will show you how to enlarge or shrink the width of the scrollbars in Windows Vista and Windows XP.
Please note: If you’re looking for the instructions on how to do this in more recent versions of Windows, we have a guide that explains how to resize the the scrollbars in Windows 7, 8 and 10.
There are a number of reasons why you may want to change the width of the scrollbars in Windows XP/Vista. If you have a touchscreen device, making them a bit wider can help you “grab” them. If you’re a power user and rarely click the scrollbars (you use your mouse’s scroll wheel etc) – you can regain some “screen real estate” by making them more narrow. Whatever your reason, here’s how to change their width.
- Start out by right-clicking a blank area on your Desktop. Select Properties from the pop-up menu.
- Select the Appearance tab at the top of the Display Properties screen, and then click the Advanced button in the bottom right-corner of the window.
- Click the “down arrow” in the Items: area. A long list of “items” will appear. Select Scrollbar from that list.
- The default size for the scrollbars is 17. If you want to increase the size of your scrollbars, choose a higher number. If you want to decrease the size of the scrollbars, choose a smaller number.
- Click OK after you’ve made the change.
- You’ll be taken back to the Appearance tab of the Display Properties. On this screen, click the Apply button. After a few moments, your scroll bars will take on their new size.
- Below is a screenshot of what happens when I enlarge the scrollbars in Vista (30px instead of 17px).
- And here’s a screenshot of a scrollbar that I’ve decreased in size – down to 4px.
- If you’re unhappy with the results, just repeat the process until you find a size you like. And if you decide you want to go back to the default, just set the size to 17. That’s it!