Windows – increase icon size in task switcher

alt-tabwindows

When Alt-Tab'ing in Windows 7, the size of the application thumbnails is quite small on higher resolutions. Especially with many applications running, imo it is hard to discern from the thumbnail which application it is.

Is it possible to increase the size of these thumbnails? There is certainly enough screen space to accommodate larger thumbnails.

Best Answer

It's possible to increase the thumbnail size in the ALT-Tab window without a 3rd party tool.

See instructions here. They give a registry file that adds several entries to the Registry that control the behavior of the ALT-Tab windows and thumbnails.

I guess you're interested in changing the MaxThumbSizePx entry.

Play a bit with the settings to find what you like. No need to restart, they're picked up on-the-fly.

If you want to change the number of rows or columns displayed in the ALT-Tab window, see the settings CoolSwitchColumns and CoolSwitchRows, explained here by Microsoft. Restart needed when changing these 2 values.

Be very cautious of course when changing the Registry !!!!

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