How to restore the borders around your windows in Windows 10

One day I did something in Windows 10 and suddenly I had no windows borders. That may sound trivial, but without the border, it was really difficult to tell which overlapping window I was working in and I frequently clicked menu items in windows that were behind the one I intended to click on.

I tried to find a fix for it because I knew I’d had borders and something had accidentally turned them off. There was even a Microsoft help thread (that — way to go! — didn’t have the right answer AND was locked from having further answers added.)

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/my-window-borders-are-missing-under-windows-10/a00a45e0-97ba-4e19-ad22-79c76b893d6a

Today I found the actual fix for the issue.

Open the Windows Settings interface. (Start > Settings)

In the search type “Performance”

Select “Adjust the Appearance and Performance of Windows”

A menu of items includes letting Windows control what’s best for performance or what is best for appearance. You can also select custom and turn elements on or off yourself. With “best for performance” I was unable to see the borders of the windows which looked like this:

Without borders, windows overlap and are confusing.

Selecting “show shadows under windows” from that menu changed this muddled visual mess to look like this instead:

With shadows on, you can actually tell which window you are clicking on.

Whoever at Microsoft that thought that having no borders on the window was a good idea should be locked in all-white room in an all-white maze with all-white seamless doors and left there until they apologize to the world.
Damn that is some shitty design.

This important menu is a pain to find.

Hopefully this map of breadcrumbs will lead you to the right menu.

So make sure this “show shadows under windows” is selected and you should see your borders again. But seriously @microsoft — WHY WOULD YOU MAKE AN OPTION TO TURN BORDERS OFF?? And why would you make it so that it’s a default for performance improvement when you “let Windows” control your settings??? DUMB. DUMB. DUMB.

I have left my system with “select for best appearance” because I’m willing to sacrifice some of my system performance in order to have a functional user interface.

And no, I’m not here to “hate on Windows.” I use Mac, Linux and Windows and all have their various pros and cons, but every now and again Microsoft does something so awful that I have to get to the bottom of it and find out how to undo their evil. At least it didn’t take a registry hack this time. <smh>