Keeping the Scroll Bar

Written by Eric Wyatt (last updated April 29, 2019)

Over the years, a change has been taking place with regards to how computers show information on screen. How the information is shown and displayed on your screen is known as the UI or User Interface. How you interact with the UI is referred to as UX, which is short for User eXperience. One of the biggest changes has been the hiding of scroll bars, those bars on the sides of windows that inform you that there is more information in the window than what you can currently see. Often, the scroll bar will show up temporarily as you start to scroll, such as with the Start Menu, but then it disappears after a predetermined amount of time. This can be a bit aggravating if you're trying to scroll through a window by clicking and dragging on the scroll bar.

If you find that you would prefer to have a scroll bar visible by default, you can change a setting within Windows 10. To show scroll bars follow these quick steps:

  1. Press the Windows key and type (without quotes) "Ease of Access Display Settings" then press Enter. Windows displays the Ease of Access Display Settings dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

    2. Figure 1. The Ease of Access Display Settings dialog box.

  2. Turn off the toggle for Automatically Hide Scroll Bars in Windows, under the Simplify and Personalize Windows heading. You can then close the settings dialog box as Windows will immediately show the scroll bars within all the windows and dialogs. (See Figure 2.)

    3. Figure 2. Start Menu with scroll bars (left) and without (right).

If you find that you want the scroll bars hidden again, simply repeat the steps you used above. This simple setting change can help you navigate through windows and dialog boxes faster or with more control.

 This tip (13626) applies to Windows 10.

Author Bio

Eric Wyatt

Eric Wyatt is a swell guy (or so his friends tell him). He is a formally trained designer and branding expert, bringing a wide range of skills to his Tips.Net articles. ...

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