Universal Focus Rectangle Remover

By loc[a]lhost
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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loc[a]lhost

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Posted

focusrectangle.png

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 :)

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/532257-universal-focus-rectangle-remover/
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  • 4 months later...
  • 1 year later...
Grand Master

Borbus

Posted
Posted
Brilliant!! thanks!! Though I am still seeing it in Firefox :/

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.

Contributor

Jay!

Posted
Posted
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

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 :)

Rookie

barky254

Posted
Posted
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 :)

thanx that worked

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.

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

thanx in advance

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...
  • 3 months later...
Apprentice

Lord Garth

Posted
Posted

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.

Guest

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

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.

  • 3 weeks later...
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