Starting with Windows 10 Build 17083, there is a new option that allows making scroll bars always stay visible in Store apps. By default, the operating system hides scroll bars when they are not hovered over with the mouse pointer.
Microsoft describes this new feature as follows:
We’ve heard your feedback and have added a new setting for those who would prefer their scrollbars stay always visible. It’s available under Settings > Ease of Access > Display. Turning this setting off will result in the scroll bars in UWP (XAML) apps persisting as scrollbars in their full expanded size, even when not interacting with them.
Note: In this build Start won’t follow the setting – we’re working on it.
So, the new option is located under the Ease of Access category in the Settings app. Let's see how to enable it.
To make Scroll Bars always visible in Windows 10 Store apps, do the following.
- Open the Settings app.
- Go to Ease of Access -> Display.
- On the right, disable the toggle option Automatically hide scroll bars in Windows.
- The scroll bars will remain permanently visible in your Store apps.
You are done.
You can undo this change at any moment by re-enabling the option Automatically hide scroll bars in Windows in Settings.
There are a number of situations where you need to configure such options with a Registry tweak. This is also possible. Let's see how it can be done.
Enable always visible Scroll Bars with a Registry tweak
- Open the Registry Editor app.
- Go to the following Registry key.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Accessibility
See how to go to a Registry key with one click.
- On the right, modify or create a new 32-Bit DWORD value DynamicScrollbars.
Note: Even if you are running 64-bit Windows you must still create a 32-bit DWORD value.
Set its value data to 1 to enable the feature. A value data of 0 will disable it.
- To make the changes done by the Registry tweak take effect, you need to sign out and sign in again to your user account.
To save your time, you can download the following ready-to-use Registry files:
That's it.
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The Settings option should work with Windows 10 Build 17083.
Will the Registry tweak work with Windows 10 Build 16299?
I have not tried. I don’t think that it will work in previous releases.
The fix for https://winaero.com/blog/make-scroll-bars-always-visible-windows-10/ no longer exists with the advent of 1709.
This does not work for Edge. Sad, the most current ‘browser’ lacks features the oldest products have. Might try to do that on bigger scale. I’ve always wanted to see MS’s dominance challenged by an OS that doesn’t cost me money to make my life worse.
The setting “Automatically hide scroll bars in Windows” does not work consistently across apps. The setting has no effect on many apps such as Edge and Chrome which continue to show the scroll bars all the time even the switch is set to “ON”. Coming from macOS and Linux it’s stunning how unprofessional and unfinished this product feels.
That worked. Now how do I get MS Word to always show the Vertical Page Position without hovering?
Which Word version you are using?