How to: Change the Borders of Windows Forms Using the Designer

There are several border styles to choose from when you are determining the appearance of your Windows Forms. By changing the FormBorderStyle FormBorderStyle property, you can control the resizing behavior of the form. In addition, setting the FormBorderStyle affects how the caption bar is displayed as well as what buttons might appear on it. For more information, see FormBorderStyle.

To set the border style of Windows Forms programmatically, see How to: Change the Borders of Windows Forms.

Note

The dialog boxes and menu commands you see might differ from those described in Help depending on your active settings or edition. To change your settings, choose Import and Export Settings on the Tools menu. For more information, see Working with Settings.

To set the border style of Windows Forms at design time

  • In the Properties window, set the FormBorderStyle property to the style you want.

    Note

    Choosing a border style will control the presence of the Minimize and Maximize boxes on the title bar. To turn their functionality on or off, but leave them present, see the following procedure, "To disable the Minimize and Maximize buttons on Windows Forms."

    The border style of a form is set using the FormBorderStyle enumeration. Setting or changing the border style of your form in code is merely a matter of setting the FormBorderStyle property to one of the values of this enumeration.

    An example of a form that has a definitive border style is a dialog box, which uses the FixedDialog border style.

To disable the Minimize and Maximize buttons on Windows Forms

  • In the Properties window, select either MinimizeBox or MaximizeBox, and choose false.

    Depending on which property you set, the corresponding button will now be present, but not functional.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Set the Screen Location of Windows Forms

How to: Change the Borders of Windows Forms

Reference

FormBorderStyle

Windows Forms Overview

Other Resources

Changing the Appearance of Windows Forms