Win7 Address Bar Length

tim_m

tim_m

i'm so nice
Joined
Feb 10, 2003
Messages
5,539
can anyone offer insight as to why i absolutely cannot adjust the length of the address and search bars in windows explorer in my fresh install of win7? this is my first time working with win7 so i have no frame of reference if this is any kind of normal thing or not.


if i mouseover the little segment in between where i expect to be able to drag i get the double horizontal arrow but clicking and dragging does absolutely nothing. i can adjust the length correctly in save/open dialogs but not a regular explorer window. it's driving me nuts.

google has turned up limited results of similar issues but they were discussing win7 beta and said it started working in a later build. i'm using release (i.e. 7600). the only possible thing is it's the $30 student upgrade instead of retail but i can't see how that would make a difference :(
 
Hit the alt key, right-click an empty area of the menubar and see if "Lock the Toolbar" is checked.
 
Could be a DPI issue. Tried using the default DPI?

ryan_975 said:
Hit the alt key, right-click an empty area of the menubar and see if "Lock the Toolbar" is checked.
Click to expand...

That's only for the toolbar.. the one that appears when you press Alt.
 
Snowknight26 it seems the DPI is the issue. i had it set at 200%, which is what i would prefer because i am unwilling to run at a lower resolution than my LCD's native 1920x1200 to get larger text.

when i reset it to 156%, the highest amount i could set without it saying "some items may not fit on your screen if you choose this setting...", i can successfully adjust the length of the address bar. at >= 157% i get that message and the length is no longer adjustable.

from my perspective clearly there's no reason the dpi ought to affect such things but what do i know. i don't suppose you have any insight? :p

i suppose i can use the 156% dpi in combination with increasing the font sizes in the window color/appearance settings (which on a side note seems tucked away and hard to pull up quickly) and perhaps that will suffice but it is somewhat annoying. then again, perhaps i've forgotten what setting i was using in vista, might have only been 150% and increasing font sizes.....

i am aware of the new screen zoom feature but i can't stand it really, i have a thing about seeing the whole screen at once.

so when i said "fresh install" it was really but the dpi is among the very first things i change always.

at least i know what was causing the issue now, not that that makes it an ok reason for it to not work.
 
The address bar likely has a minimum size in terms of characters. When you up the limit, it's below its minimum limit and doesn't let you resize it any smaller.
 
just to state what i thought was obvious, the problem was the search field being ridiculously large considering how much more important having a long address field generally is.
 
the slider is in a good position with the lower DPIs, once you pass 156% though, apparently it doesn't matter and has no effect. i think i can manage with it at 156% but i wanted to check with you all to see if this was a known issue at least.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top