• Introduction
• Resize
• Configuration
• Language
• Mouse and keyboard
• Blacklist
• Performance
• Updates
• Windows hacks
• X-Mouse
• Disable Aero Shake
• UAC
• Reporting bugs and suggesting new features
• About the author

Introduction

In addition to simply dragging windows, you can double-click a window to maximize it.

While dragging a window, you can press the shift key to make the window snap to other windows.

If you still have troubles understanding how AltDrag works, you can watch this short video that a user has posted to YouTube.

Resize

You can use either the middle or right mouse button to resize windows. Imagine the window divided into nine squares, and you will resize the corner nearest to where you press.

Configuration

Since 1.0, AltDrag has a configuration GUI. The simplest way to open it is by double-clicking the tray icon. The settings are saved in a file called AltDrag.ini.

Language

You can currently choose between English, Spanish, Galician and Chinese. I used to offer translations for Russian and Korean, but they have been discontinued because they are out of date.

Do you want to translate AltDrag? Read how to do that here.

Mouse and keyboard

You can reconfigure what the mouse buttons do here. The actions that you can choose from are Move, Resize, Minimize, AlwaysOnTop, Center, Close and Nothing.

If you have a great idea for a new mouse action, put in a request in the issue tracker.

Blacklist

There are three blacklists in AltDrag. They let you disable AltDrag from affecting some windows. This is a pretty advanced option and even has its own wiki page. I recommend you to skip this option until you have learned more about AltDrag.

Performance

If you open the ini file, you can configure a few settings related to performance.

First there is the Cursor option which disables the mouse cursor from changing shape during dragging and resizing.

Then there are MoveRate and ResizeRate which controls how often the window is redrawn during move and resize. Increase the values to make AltDrag redraw the window less often. Set these values to 1 to make AltDrag use pre-1.0 behavior.

Updates

AltDrag will by default check if there is a newer version available when it is started. It will only notify you if it finds a new version, it will not download anything for you. You can disable this behavior if you don't like it. You can check for update manually in the tray menu, regardless of this setting.

Remember that you can monitor the rss feed for new releases.

Windows hacks

X-Mouse

There is a hidden setting in Windows that allows for window activation on mouse hovering. This setting is first exposed in the control panel in Windows 7. For previous Windows versions you have to use the TweakUI utility and enable the "X-Mouse" setting. You can find out what registry settings does this here.

Disable Aero Shake

If you, like me, dislike the ability in Windows 7 to shake a window to minimize all other windows, then you can disable it with the following registry hack. Create the DWORD value NoWindowMinimizingShortcuts in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer and give it the value 1.

If you are too lazy to start regedit, then simply run this command:

reg add HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer /t REG_DWORD /v NoWindowMinimizingShortcuts /d 1

To change it back, run this command:

reg delete HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer /v NoWindowMinimizingShortcuts /f

You have to log off and in for the change to take effect.

UAC

AltDrag does not require administrator privileges. The only case it needs administrator privileges is when you are trying to drag an elevated program. If you installed AltDrag in C:\Program Files\, then you need administrator privileges to edit AltDrag.ini. The easiest way to fix this is by right clicking on AltDrag.ini, click Properties, then go to the Security tab and give the Users group Full control to the file.

If you want AltDrag to launch with administrator privileges on startup, then you have to configure the task scheduler to launch AltDrag on log in. Read this blog post for a tutorial. There is one caveat though, you need to configure a delay of 30 seconds before the task is started. Otherwise the tray icon won't be added properly and AltDrag will not work. You must also disable the autostart option in the tray menu. Successfully configuring a task like this will allow AltDrag to be launched on startup with administrator privileges without a UAC prompt.

Reporting bugs and suggesting new features

You should report bugs and suggest new features in the issue tracker. If you send them by email I might forget them.

When suggesting new features, just keep this in mind; I don't want AltDrag to become this:

About the author

AltDrag was created and is maintained by Stefan Sundin. You can visit my website at stefansundin.com.