Monday, May 13, 2013

How to Disable Aero Shake in Windows 8





Aero Shake, a feature that debuted in Windows 7, allows the user to minimize the all the other open windows on the desktop by grabbing and shaking one of the windows. I've always found Aero Shake to be a little annoying, but I wasn't surprised to see that Microsoft carried this feature over to Windows 8. Let’s take a look at how to turn it off.

Update: Dave Hicks pointed out in the comments below that this method doesn't work in Windows 8 Home Edition do to the lack of gpedit. See How to Disable Aero Shake in Windows 8 Home Edition for a registry hack that disables Aero Shake.

Move your mouse to the lower left corner of the screen, right click, and select Run



Type gpedit.msc and click OK to open the Local Group Policy Editor



Under User Configuration expand the Desktop folder

Double click on Turn off Aero Shake windows minimizing mouse gesture in the right pane of the Local Group Policy Editor


In the Turn off Aero Shake windows minimizing mouse gesture window click the Enabled radio button and click OK



Close the Local Group Policy Editor. Now you can shake windows until the cows come home and nothing will happen.

6 comments:

  1. It's my understanding that there is no gpedit.msc in Windows 8 Home edition. I've looked for it, didn't find it, and many comments online say it's no included in Home edition. Some sites say it can be downloaded and installed.

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    1. Thanks David. I don't have a Windows 8 Home install to check this on. When I get a chance I'll see if I can set one up and find a solution.

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  2. Thanks for sharing this. The feature being disabled is, in my opinion, something that most users would prefer.

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  3. can anyone tell me why this would remain enabled after following these steps?

    ive rebooted my pc and checked the setting again after and its setup to "enabled" so that it disables the aero shake. Unfortunetly aero shake is definetly active and anoying. does anyone else have any idea's as to why this would be?

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  4. Thanks!!! So helpful! We have Win8 at work and turning this off is awesome!

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