Since Windows 3.11 or even earlier, we had this ugly focus rectangle shown in almost every window, and most annoyingly, on items that are selected and have different signs to tell us they are in focus.
So I've made a little program to remove this thing.
It should work on every 32-bit version of Windows. A 64-bit version might come later, but I'm not sure.

Installation:
1. Put RemoveFocusRect in your system32 directory.
2. Click Start and select Run.
3. Type "regsvr32 RemoveFocusRect.dll" (without the quotes) and press OK.
4. Next time a program is started, it won't have focus rectangles.
Note: In Windows Vista, all those steps should be done with administrative privileges.

Click here to download.

Enjoy

Awesome. Thanks

Brilliant!! thanks!! Though I am still seeing it in Firefox

Also will i have to launch this every time I restart, or will it automatically work now??


thanks

It fails on my computer.

The universe hates me.

I've updated the download to fix the installation failures, and added some better error reporting. Now it will specify a meaningful error code (for me, at least) if the installation fails, and not just 0x8004005.

Hey, this is awesome! Thanks for this, it's really cool.

Great! It works for me! Thanks!

bump lol..

Ain't there any way to make this work in explorer and on the desktop =[

this seems a cool idea but can someone please provide more screenshots of this annoying rectagle?

in vista..

I just installed this and after a reboot it apparently removes it everywhere.. Goddamn beauty THANK YOU FOR THIS.. he should get more support tho im the only one hating this dot box?

Does it remove the rectangle everywhere on reboot in Windows XP as well?

Yes

how come this doesnt work for me i get an error message saying that it was loaded but failed
any solutions to this would be greatly appreciated

That's because Firefox does it itself on every platform. You can remove it by editing the default CSS styles, I think. Note that Neowin removes it in its stylesheets. This isn't very good because it makes Neowin not keyboard accessible.

THANK YOU!!!!! I hate this ugly rectangle, why the heck do they still have it?!

Instead of going start>run, do this:

1. Goto start menu
2. Type in cmd
3. Right click CMD and click Run As Administrator
4. Do the regsvr32 thing he said

I don't see the problem, it lets you know where you were before you current click.

Perhaps a lighter shade of the select background would be a better indicator.

thanx that worked


where do i go to find these css styles and wat do i edit and to wat?
thanx in advance

64 bit version would be great, any chance of this happening? Really dislike those focus rectangles.

+1 for 64-bit version.

Also, a version for Windows 7 because the current version doesn't do the trick in Windows 7.

Pretty please?

I installed this on my system----Vista Home Premium SP2--Legal Copy 4GB memory ATI Radeon graphics card and it totally screwed up my system, and I mean SCREWED it up royally. I am no dummy when it comes to computing, but I suspect there is something very wrong with this little patch. Can you supply the source code so we can take a look at it? Otherwise I would steer clear of this until it is confirmed if this runs properly on VistaSP2. The problem I encountered was booting to a black screen with the mouse cursor spinning away it remained like that until I clicked the mouse and then the screen went white I got an error message saying that the "Application did not boot" I had the option of clicking it closed but that only returned me to the white screen. I rebooted with a special developers boot CD and removed the DLL, once removed all was fine. I tried again on two other units and had the same problem. Something is not right with this. Please note that I followed your instructions on install to the letter.

I find it quite handy actually. If I go into Explorer, I can see which folder the cursor is at. It's not selected but it's where the cursor is.
It also tells me what link I last clicked which is handy if I've got lots of tabs out. It's just nice reminder of where I left off.

I don't have a problem with the box itself, but I just wish they made it a bit nicer looking. Nitpicking, I know.