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Actual Window Guard Changelog

What's new in Actual Window Guard 8.15.0

Jun 26, 2023
  • Security: Now all Actual Tools runtime executables natively support the Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) security technologies provided by the system. That hardens the overall system security by preventing various exploit attacks.
  • Title Buttons: Numerous fixes and improvements in Chromium-based apps:
  • Glyphs on extra buttons did not change their color when toggling an app's window active/inactive automatic gradual compact mode did not work in Opera and Vivaldi (so the extra buttons covered the browser tabs and the "New tab" button)
  • Note: If you have specific windows settings for these browsers (either factory or custom) then you need to reset there the "Title Buttons > Options > Shift the buttons horizontally" value back to 0 to make the gradual compact mode work properly.
  • In some cases current title bar color could not be detected correctly, and the glyphs looked wrong (e.g. white in the Light visual theme)

New in Actual Window Guard 8.14.7 (Jun 23, 2022)

  • Memory consumption and overall system load is slightly reduced.
  • In some rare cases multi-window applications might crash silently after closing and re-opening a window of the same type (e.g. separate message window in email client).
  • Compatibility is improved with custom cursors provided by Yolo Mouse.
  • After exiting and then starting Actual Window Guard back, some features in some applications might work erratically.
  • In multi-window applications memory leaked slightly after each cycle of closing a window and then opening two windows in a row.
  • Excel 2007+ hung after closing some of its standard dialogs: Protect Sheet, Conditional Formatting, Chart Data, etc.
  • Configuration: The Send to Tech Support feature did not recognize Windows 11 marking the sent configurations as Win10-built.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.14.6 (Jun 23, 2022)

  • Some internal components are made more concurrency-friendly by removing redundant locks and eliminating bottlenecks that might cause a noticeable system slowdown on multi-core CPUs in some scenarios.
  • Internal consumption of memory and system resources is slightly reduced, some memory/resource leaks are fixed.
  • Windows 10: Some improvements for UWP apps:
  • Extra menu commands added by Actual Window Guard are finally available in the system window menu invoked by a title bar right click
  • The "Prevent window's accidental close" feature now works as expected
  • Window Settings, Windows 7+: Another proper specific settings did not apply to a File Explorer window with some specific settings already applied when its caption changed after switching to a certain folder and the Explorer option "Display the full path in the title bar" was on.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.14.5 (Feb 13, 2021)

  • Windows 10 Insider 64 build 21277+: The program crashed at startup.
  • Licensing: The evaluation period is prolonged by a third of its original duration for the update versions released after the Free Updates Subscription epiration date.
  • An invalid memory operation could cause cascading errors in the ControlCenter at its startup if the "Collect usage statistics" option was enabled.
  • Some application windows (e.g. Directory Opus) stopped reacting on Control Center commands (like pausing/resuming or modifying the settings).
  • Window Actions: The Run Keyboard Macro action forced its target window remain foreground, which was inappropriate if a macro's purpose presumed another window activation (especially when the action was activated by any means other than "At Window Startup").

New in Actual Window Guard 8.14.4 (Oct 10, 2020)

  • Important:
  • Internal security has been accurately revised and tightened to follow the principle of least privilege (in particular, for kernel objects used for inter-process communication).
  • Internal error handling has been revised and improved for better interoperability with apps using .NET runtime (and probably some other frameworks).
  • Internal handling of display-related information has been optimized to reduce the overall delay after changing the desktop geometry (i.e. attaching/detaching a monitor or changing a monitor resolution).
  • New:
  • Window Settings: The ability is added to apply window settings to such system pop-up windows as Action Center, Volume Mixer, Network, and tray notifications.
  • Changes:
  • Window Actions: Now the "Prevent window's accidental close" option works in Mozilla-based apps (Firefox, Thunderbird, Pale Moon) and some Chromium-based apps (Google Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, Yandex.Browser, Brave, Skype for Desktop).
  • Fixed error:
  • In some rare cases some apps might get hung after reapplying their window settings or unloading Actual Window Guard.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.14.3 (Dec 27, 2019)

  • In some rare cases, running applications might crash randomly.
  • Some applications (Adobe products, TechSmith products, Parametric
  • Technologies products, and some others) got hung if two or more Actual Tools
  • programs were running at once (exiting all but one Actual Tools programs
  • made hung applications responsive back).
  • Window Actions: The "Block premature appearance of window" option did not
  • work as declared in Chromium-based applications.
  • Window Actions: Applying the "Send to bottom" action at startup might make
  • the Alt key appear to be pressed (actual pressing/releasing the physical
  • Alt key removed that effect).
  • Text on buttons in the Evaluation dialog was garbled in some Asian languages
  • (Chinese, Japanese).

New in Actual Window Guard 8.14.2 (Oct 29, 2019)

  • Numerous fixes of runtime internals to improve speed, robustness, and reliability.
  • Ability to update an existing license key is added: see the "Enter new license key" item either in the "Tools - License" Configuration window panel or in the Actual Window Guard notification area icon's context menu.
  • Window Actions: The "Relocate split windows" feature now works right in a multi-monitor environment.
  • Windows Monitoring Log: The following bugs are fixed:
  • dragging an excluded window filled the log quickly with duplicate "New window" events
  • a "Caption changed" event was always followed by the duplicate "New window" event the Log window itself did not appear in the log
  • Configuration: The Index panel of window settings:
  • did not display specified parameters of the "Fix minimal/maximal size to" items in the Size section
  • showed internal non-localized identifiers in the Startup section after making any changes at the Startup page

New in Actual Window Guard 8.14.1 (Jul 10, 2019)

  • Internal logic of global hook handlers is revised to improve the compatibility with the systems running on multi-core CPUs.
  • Actual Window Guard 8.14 (15.05.2019)
  • [Microsoft Office 2013+: Application windows got frozen for a long time (up to several minutes) after locking the user session and then unlocking it back.
  • Configuration: Now configuration windows and dialogs correctly scale their content to a current DPI resolution, including on-the-fly scaling when dragging them between monitors with different DPI resolutions.
  • Window Actions: Google Chrome window did not respect the Restrict Placement and Fix Minimal/Maximal Size actions when it was full screen or in kiosk mode.
  • Configuration: The "Copy settings from" command stopped working.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.13.3 (Nov 29, 2018)

  • Windows 10 build 17763+: System SmartScreen process ate up to 100% CPU resources when Actual Window Guard was running.
  • Window Settings: Exclusions stopped working since the version 8.13.
  • Configuration: Specific Settings editing windows now are truly independent of the main Configuration window:
  • Clicking the Apply button in such window now immediately saves the changes (no need to click Apply in the main window as well)
  • After closing the main window these windows remain fully functional
  • Window Actions: Restrict Placement window action did not affect maximized windows of Google Chrome.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.13.2 (Oct 13, 2018)

  • Windows Vista/7: Process dwm.exe crashed each time after unloading Actual Window Guard Control Center.
  • Configuration: In really high DPI resolutions (> 200%), caption of a first option in each group overlapped the group's title.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.13.1 (Sep 27, 2018)

  • Windows 10: In some cases the Task View window might get broken when Actual Window Guard was set to load at system startup.
  • Configuration: Now all toobars respect the options of the "Toolbars" group in the "Options - User Interface" panel.
  • Windows 10, Window Settings: Specific settings did not apply to UWP apps running full-screen (e.g. Groove, Solitaire Collection).
  • Configuration: The "Global Options - Start Program" panel accidentally got broken in the previous version.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.13 (Aug 22, 2018)

  • Windows x64: The overall workload on a system has been reduced significantly, especially on multi-core CPUs.
  • Configuration: Windows are now properly scaled at startup to conform with the DPI resolution set for a monitor, which they are opening on.
  • Move to Monitor: After moving a maximized Google Chrome window to a monitor with a different DPI resolution, the window got beyond the visible desktop area.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.12.1 (Apr 21, 2018)

  • Windows x64: In some rare cases applications might crash.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.12 (Mar 3, 2018)

  • Some applications (e.g. Malwarebytes) might hang at startup if Actual Window Guard was running.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.11.2 (Sep 28, 2017)

  • Windows 10 Creators Update: Metro (UWP) apps crashed at startup if Actual Window Guard was running.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.11.1 (Jul 27, 2017)

  • Windows 10: Some apps (like Visual Studio 2012 installer and components, or iTunes Helper) crashed when Actual Window Guard was running.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.11 (Jun 23, 2017)

  • Windows 10: Now you can create specific window settings for Metro (UWP) apps (e.g. Settings, Edge, Skype, Store, Xbox, Calculator, etc.).
  • The factory exclusion rule "All unnamed windows" is added to skip all windows with an empty caption.
  • Configuration: Captions on the Tools panels got cut in high DPI resolutions.
  • Configuration: Exclusion detail panel did not refresh after adding a new exclusion in the list.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.10.2 (Mar 28, 2017)

  • UltraEdit main window consumed CPU a lot with Actual Window Guard running.
  • Configuration: In Windows 7+, web links always opened in Internet Explorer, not default web browser.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.10.1 (Feb 21, 2017)

  • Localizaton: Arabic language is added.
  • Configuration: Test Regexp dialog displayed an error if it was opened on a monitor with high DPI resolution.
  • Updating: If the "New version is available" balloon notification was shown, right click on the Actual Window Guard notification area icon started the installation instead of displaying icon's context menu.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.10 (Feb 21, 2017)

  • Windows x64: Stability is greatly improved (there should be no more high CPU usage or app crashes at Actual Window Guard startup).
  • Configuration: Test Regexp and Select Window From List dialogs now look and work correct in high DPI resolutions.
  • There was possible (of low probability, though) security breach when running Actual Window Guard library from the %Temp% folder.
  • Configuration: Check box and radio button captions got cut in high DPI resolutions.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.9 (Jul 29, 2016)

  • The CFL command line switch is expanded with the ability to specify an arbitrary folder where the configuration files should be stored: ActualWindowGuardCenter.exe CFL ""
  • Overall stability is improved.
  • Evaluation dialog has been restyled.
  • Proper scaling in high DPI resolutions has been finally implemented for program dialogs (About, Register, Check for Updates, etc.).
  • Some features stopped working in Skype windows after saving the Actual Window Guard configuration.
  • Windows 7+: Specific window settings with certain Window Caption criterion specified did not apply to Microsoft Management Console windows (Event Viewer, Task Scheduler, Disk Manager, etc.).

New in Actual Window Guard 8.8.2 (Jul 29, 2016)

  • Configuration: Navigation pages now display a tooltip with the full caption text over their header if the caption text does not fit the header visible area.
  • Configuration: With large interface font size (either set manually in the User Interface settings or generated automatically because of a high screen DPI resolution), navigation page captions did not fit the headers.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.8.1 (Jul 29, 2016)

  • Windows 10: False-positive SmartScreen warning about setup file corruption is finally remedied.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.8 (Apr 1, 2016)

  • Configuration: List of specific Window Settings has been removed from the Window Settings navigation tree. Now, you can edit certain Specific Window settings item in a separate window that can be opened in the following ways: double click the required item in the Specific Settings list
  • select the required item in the Specific Settings list and press Enter
  • use the Edit Window Rule command in either the toolbar or the context menu
  • of the Specific Settings list
  • Configuration: Global Options subitems have been removed from the Window Settings navigation tree and transformed into tabs of the Global Options detail panel.
  • Configuration: Back/Forward buttons have been added into each Configuration window to provide the navigation through the user interface panels like in web browsers.
  • Configuration: Incremental Search box has been added into each Configuration window. Now you can quickly discover a panel that contains the required option just by typing several letters of what you want to find. Search engine considers the following text information:
  • 1) captions of user interface panels and all their sub-controls (control hints are ignored at the moment for the sake of search speed)
  • 2) captions of built-in and user-added objects of the following types: specific window settings
  • window exclusions
  • hotkeys
  • Start Program shortcuts
  • Configuration: Undo/Redo commands now track the changes separately for each
  • window.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.7 (Feb 5, 2016)

  • The navigation panel in the main Configuration window has been replaced
  • Configuration: Global options of window settings (like title buttons skin
  • window menu items order, pre-defined window sizes, etc.) have been moved
  • from the Options category to the Window Settings category in the main
  • Configuration window
  • Configuration: Ability is added to select all items in the lists with
  • multi-selection allowed by pressing the Ctrl-A hotkey. As this key
  • combination was reserved for adding a new item to a list, the New Item
  • hotkey has been changed to Ctrl-N
  • Configuration: Hotkey combinations for list operations have been unified
  • for all list-editing panels
  • Ins, Ctrl-N - add new item
  • Del, Ctrl-D - delete selected item
  • F5 - copy selected item
  • Ctrl-=, Ctrl-Num+ - enable all items (where available)
  • Ctrl--, Ctrl-Num- - disable all items (where available)
  • Ctrl-A - select all items (where available)
  • Configuration: Confirmation request for the Delete Item operation has been
  • removed in all list-editing panels. If you accidentally removed the needed
  • item - you can click the Undo button in the bottom-left corner of the main
  • Configuration window or press the Undo hotkey (Ctrl-Z by default)
  • Configuration: The flickering has been reduced significantly when resizing
  • either the Configuration windows themselves or their internals
  • Windows 10: Hotkeys now work in Metro apps
  • Configuration: Separate Window Settings windows now retain their position
  • and size when you open them again
  • Installer: The uninstaller popped up interactive dialog requests even if it
  • had been launched with /SILENT or /VERYSILENT command line option
  • Configuration: Minimized windows did not restore on clicking
  • the notification area icon or pressing the Configure hotkey

New in Actual Window Guard 8.6.1 (Nov 23, 2015)

  • Overall stability is improved.
  • Buttons on the "Tools - Control Center" panel are made more usable.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.6 (Oct 8, 2015)

  • Now you can suspend/resume Actual Window Guard via command line using the following syntax, respectively: ActualWindowGuardCenter.exe suspend / ActualWindowGuardCenter.exe resume
  • If Actual Window Guard was installed into a trusted location (such as "Program Files" folder) using administrative privileges and then used under non-privileged user account, Actual Window Guard update installer now warns that it must be run as administrator to update the installation in a trusted location.
  • Windows 10: System Alt-Tab switcher worked wrong if the "Move to monitor at startup - Where mouse pointer" action was enabled in the default window settings.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.5.3 (Sep 22, 2015)

  • On some combinations of video hardware and drivers Actual Window Guard crashed at startup.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.5.1 (Sep 5, 2015)

  • On some hardware configurations, Actual Window Guard crashed at startup.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.5 (Aug 27, 2015)

  • Windows 10 basic compatibility is added.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.4 (May 27, 2015)

  • Sometimes running programs might crash after unloading Actual Window Guard.
  • The bug prevented NuSphere PhpEd 15 debugger from starting is fixed.
  • Magix products (Movie Edit, Music Maker) stopped responding during loading.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.3 (Apr 16, 2015)

  • The overall support of high screen DPIs is improved.
  • Last used path is saved in the Configuration Backup/Restore dialogs.
  • The multi-selection of specific window settings got broken.
  • The "Manage Window Settings" window menu item didn't appear.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.2 (Sep 23, 2014)

  • The Configuration Module now can run multiple windows at once.
  • For example, you can open several Window Settings windows using the "Manage window settings" title button (separate window for each settings).
  • When several configuration windows are open at once, changes made within a particular window are isolated there until you click the Apply button in that window.
  • Changes made in the Default Window Settings now are propagated automatically to all existing specific window settings (provided that the old value was the same in both Default and particular specific settings).
  • Quick Setup wizard is added. It allows to tune up quickly the most frequently used features (according to collected and analyzed usage statistics) without diving into details.
  • Compatibility with Windows 8.1 Service Pack 1 has been improved.
  • The window invoked by the "Copy Settings from..." command now does not display the target Window Settings item.
  • Downloaded setups of newer versions were installed automatically even if the automatic updates were disabled (which prevented the rolling back to any previous version if a newer version setup was available).
  • NuSphere PhpEd 12 crashed when trying to scroll the File Explorer view.
  • Unloading 1st Clock right after restoring from hibernation made Windows Explorer hung.
  • Canceling the download in the "Check for Updates" dialog caused an error.
  • Pressing Enter in the "Check for Updates" dialog after the download was started caused the restart of downloading.
  • In the Configuration window, multi-line edit fields reset their scroll bars to the beginning after typing a character when the content exceeded the size of the edit field.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.1.4 (Apr 11, 2014)

  • German translation is revised.
  • Some windows might disappear if the "Fix maximal window size" feature was active (in particular, the "Open File" dialogs in Actual Window Guard Configuration).
  • Windows XP/Vista: Command prompt windows launched after starting Actual Window Guard remained unprocessed.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.1.3 (Mar 21, 2014)

  • Incompatibility with Mikrotik's Winbox windows is fixed.
  • Adobe Acrobat Standard X/XI crashed upon trying to start a new scan.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.1.2 (Mar 5, 2014)

  • Ability to specify file masks (using the "*" and "?" symbols) for the Program target window criterion is added
  • Compatibility with Agnitum Outpost Security Suite is restored
  • Compatibility with Foxit PDF Reader is improved
  • Windows 8/8.1: Internet Explorer 11 closed immediately when running in Metro mode
  • In some cases opening a new window of Internet Explorer 11 also opened additional unwanted IE window
  • Adobe Flash Installer crashed after clicking the Quit button if Actual Window Guard was running
  • PuTTYSessionManager crashed after closing it automatically on window deactivation
  • In some cases changing Actual Window Guard language made some of additional title buttons and window menu commands disappear

New in Actual Window Guard 8.1.1 (Jan 31, 2014)

  • Sometimes running programs might crash after unloading Actual Window Guard.
  • Some kinds of windows stopped working correctly when extended by Actual Window Guard (in particular, windows of the Investor/RT app).

New in Actual Window Guard 8.1 (Jan 23, 2014)

  • Now it is possible to specify the default location of configuration files via command line: run "ActualWindowGuardCenter.exe CFL 1|2|3|-", where
  • 1 - program installation folder
  • 2 - "Application Data" folder in the All Users user profile
  • 3 - "Application Data" folder in the current user profile (default)
  • - - remove the value from the Registry
  • Sending of collected usage statistics is added.
  • When using the Window Finder tool to fill the "Align window" or "Resize window" parameters from an existing window, the actual values are calculated in set measure units and alignment mode.
  • Check for Updates options are moved into separate panel in the Options page.
  • Now it is possible to open the Check for Updates options from the Check for Updates window.
  • Now it is possible to restore the lost registration code from the Registration dialog.
  • Windows 8/8.1: Running programs in "Windows XP/Vista compatibility" mode made them hung at startup.
  • Automatically moving or sizing Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 windows at startup made them unusable.
  • Flash Player running in the Firefox Plugin Container consumed system resources constantly.
  • Unloading 1st Clock made Windows Explorer hung.
  • Zoom screen sharing utility worked improperly when Actual Window Guard was running.
  • Google Chrome crashed when Actual Window Guard tried to display a tooltip showing window position/size when dragging/sizing Chrome window.
  • Windows 8: Pinning a window to desktop caused visual glitches.
  • After pinning a window to desktop its placement might be calculated improperly if the multi-monitor desktop had a negative coordinates area.
  • Windows 7+: The "Program" target window criterion did not work in console windows.
  • Automatic update always downloaded the latest available setup file from the server no matter it was already downloaded or not.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.0.3 (Oct 2, 2013)

  • After downloading the update, setup did not run after clicking on the tray balloon "Click here to install it right now" message if the "Load at startup" option was enabled.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.0.2 (Oct 2, 2013)

  • With larger size of system dialog font, registration codes were cut down after pasting into the Registration dialog so that the program could not recognize them as valid codes.
  • Installer froze for 10 seconds after copying the files.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.0.1 (Oct 2, 2013)

  • Uninstallation did not work because of the "DLL not found" error.

New in Actual Window Guard 8.0 (Oct 2, 2013)

  • Beginning from the version 8.0, the Licensing Policy changes: now you must purchase as many copies of the program as many users will use the program simultaneously. There is no limit on the number of computers the program can be installed on and registered with the same registration code as long as the number of simultaneous users is less than or equal to the number of purchased copies.
  • Beginning from the version 8.0, the Upgrade Policy changes: now purchasing the registration code grants you the Free Upgrades Subscription for a certain period (a year). During this period, you are eligible to get any new versions of the program for free. After this period expires, you will have to purchase another registration code to prolong the Free Upgrades Subscription (in case you want to do so). Otherwise, you can continue to use the last actual version of the program, it will remain registered and fully functional.
  • Support of child windows within multi-document interface (MDI) applications is added. The most well-known example of such windows are Microsoft Excel workbooks. However, because of speciality of such windows some window actions cannot be applied to them, and others work differently than for usual top-level windows (for more information, please refer to User Manual).
  • Korean language is added
  • AutoUpdate is finally available. Now, Actual Window Guard not only checks for a new version but also downloads and installs it automatically.
  • Collection of usage statistics is added. When enabled, it is keeping record of any window manipulation you undertake in a special log file.
  • Collection of usage statistics is enabled by default. If you encounter any problems with it then you can disable it in the "Options - General" panel. Otherwise, please keep it enabled for a sufficient time (at least several days) to let Actual Window Guard collect enough statistical data. Then, please send us your configuration using the Send to Tech Support button in the "Tools - Configuration" panel. This will help us analyze and better understand the preferences and needs of our users and improve our products more consciously and purposefully.
  • Dutch translation is revised.
  • After setting window position using the Align Window action, the window retains the set alignment when changing the size using the Resize Window action, until the user drags the window or changes its size manually.

New in Actual Window Guard 7.5.1 (Apr 12, 2013)

  • Windows x64: In some environments, memory might leak gradually in the Control Center.

New in Actual Window Guard 7.5 (Mar 26, 2013)

  • Global system hooks are replaced with the hooks local for each process. This should fix some known compatibility problems (e.g. with Lotus Notes, Adobe Acrobat) and also improve the overall stability.
  • Hotkeys now work in applications (mostly, video games) that use DirectInput to provide keyboard/mouse control (e.g. Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Battlefield 3, etc.).
  • Windows 7: If Internet Explorer is already open, launching a new instance of it opened an unwanted extra window.

New in Actual Window Guard 7.4.3 (Feb 19, 2013)

  • Compatibility with MAXQDA is improved.
  • In some cases specific window settings did not apply to 64-bit applications (e.g. Waterfox).

New in Actual Window Guard 7.4.2 (Feb 6, 2013)

  • Compatibility with PTC products (Creo, Windchill, Arbortext, Mathcad,
  • Integrity) is improved.
  • Program dialogs now look correct in the systems with the right-to-left
  • writing language installed (like Hebrew, Arabic, etc.).

New in Actual Window Guard 7.4.1 (Jan 3, 2013)

  • The ability to toggle the logging on-the-fly in the Log window is added.
  • The ability to open the Configuration window for certain window settings or an exclusion by double-clicking its entry in the Log window is added.
  • Compatibility with Adobe Premiere is improved.

New in Actual Window Guard 7.4 (Dec 19, 2012)

  • The ability is added to specify a delay before adding/removing standard window parts.
  • Windows 7: The ability to start Actual Window Guard at the end of the installation is restored.
  • SURFCAM 6 crashed in some cases.
  • If there were hotkey combinations already by the system, other hotkey combinations might work incorrectly.
  • Windows 8: When trying to change the position/size of Windows Explorer windows at their startup, they painted incorrectly if the "Block premature window appearance" option was enabled in window settings.
  • Control keys (e.g. Backspace) were blocked while editing file names in the Configuration window.

New in Actual Window Guard 7.3 (Nov 23, 2012)

  • Compatibility with the following programs is restored:
  • Logitech SetPoint
  • WordPerfect 12
  • Compatibility with the following programs is improved:
  • SmartDraw 12
  • HTML-Kit Tools
  • The order of monitors used in the Move to Monitor feature now is the same as in the system.
  • Language Bar's context menu disappeared immediately after popping up.
  • In some cases, on 64-bit systems some windows might display their caption text in Chinese.
  • The "&" symbol did not displayed in window captions.
  • Tooltips disappeared in Microsoft Office 2007 and higher.
  • Windows 8: The "Open With" list of options disappeared immediately if the "Move to Monitor at Startup" feature was enabled in the Default Settings.
  • The "Open as - Maximized" feature worked unstable for the Microsoft Excel main window.
  • Remove Standard Window Parts feature did not work with XBMC media player.
  • The "Startup - Send to Bottom" feature did not work.

New in Actual Window Guard 7.2 (Nov 19, 2012)

  • The library file awgemb64.dll is built using another compiler so we expect
  • the increased stability on 64-bit systems (especially on Windows 7 and
  • Windows 8).

New in Actual Window Guard 7.1 (Nov 19, 2012)

  • Italian language is added (translation provided by Davide Pari).
  • Compatibility with Windows 8 Release Preview is improved:
  • correct work with 64-bit Internet Explorer and administrative tools
  • Compatibility with NVIDIA nView is improved.
  • Windows 7: The "Run as different user" option of the Start Program action
  • now displays the dialog prompting for credentials (instead of running as
  • administrator by default).
  • Trying to select several Window Settings items in the left panel and delete
  • them resulted in the deletion of a single item only.

New in Actual Window Guard 7.0 (Nov 19, 2012)

  • Configuration window has been revamped
  • Compatibility with Windows 8 Consumer Preview is improved
  • Compatibility with Windows Snipping Tool is improved
  • Compatibility with TechSmith's Snagit is improved
  • Compatibility with GOM Media Player is improved
  • Compatibility with Gyazo is improved
  • Actual Window Guard is now compatible with virtual video devices
  • like those added by MaxiVista or iDisplay)
  • The "C" command line option has been modified: now it expects a fully
  • qualified name of a folder that contains alternative configuration files
  • to load
  • In some rare cases, window settings did not re-apply after modification
  • Some window settings re-applied after saving the configuration even if
  • they were not modified
  • Crashes in dwm.exe happened occasionally
  • In some cases, Control Center might crash upon reloading the configuration
  • When launching Actual Window Guard after Stardock DeskScapes
  • Windows Explorer crashed or became unstable
  • With Actual Window Guard running, capturing a video in TechSmith's
  • Jing made it crash upon closing
  • Additional commands did not appear in the Windows Media Center window menu
  • after switching its window back from full-screen
  • The Remove Taskbar Entry action worked unstable
  • Maximizing a window pinned to desktop in a multi-monitor system made it
  • span the entire desktop instead of the current monitor
  • Configuration windows stayed out of sight when they were located
  • on a secondary monitor and the monitor got disabled

New in Actual Window Guard 6.7.2 (Nov 24, 2011)

  • Sometimes the dwm.exe process crashed.

New in Actual Window Guard 6.7.1 (Nov 14, 2011)

  • Some Configuration windows (like Select Window from List, Test Regexp) did not return into a visible area after their last monitor was disconnected.
  • Sometimes, empty match lines appeared in the Test Regexp results.

New in Actual Window Guard 6.7 (Oct 28, 2011)

  • Norwegian language is added
  • Ability is added to toggle the "Run the library from the installation folder" option via program's command line (use the L+/L- command line option to turn this option on/off, accordingly; by default, this option is off).
  • Window rules (specifics and exclusions) are now compatible with windows of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.
  • Compatibility with many Adobe products is improved (however, some functions may be unavailable yet).
  • Compatibility with Mindjet's MindManager is improved.
  • Compatibility with TechSmith's SnagIt is improved.
  • Tracking of window caption changes is improved (in particular, for own Actual Window Guard configuration dialogs).
  • Microsoft Excel 2007/2010 crashed after opening/closing the Chart Source Data dialog.
  • Various Adobe products (like Photoshop, Flash, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Illustrator) crashed upon exiting.
  • Autodesk Softimage hung at startup if Actual Window Guard was running.
  • If a window was made always-on-top, it did not reset to a normal state after unloading Actual Window Guard.

New in Actual Window Guard 6.6 (Aug 2, 2011)

  • Indonesian language is added (translation provided by Elda Taluta).
  • Windows Vista/7: When installing a new version, special system mechanism is used to avoid the reboot after updating program's runtime library.
  • Windows Vista/7: Sometimes Actual Window Guard caused Desktop Window Manager's crash.

New in Actual Window Guard 6.5.1 (Jul 18, 2011)

  • Console windows hung for 5 seconds after launching.

New in Actual Window Guard 6.5 (May 27, 2011)

  • Compatibility with the fullscreen mode of Adobe Flash Player is improved.
  • Crashes of skinned Media Monkey windows are fixed.
  • The Restrict Placement action worked incorrect when the restriced area was in negative coordinates.
  • Edit boxes for time delays worked incorrect with large values.

New in Actual Window Guard 6.4 (Feb 13, 2011)

  • The ability to backup/restore the configuration is added (see the Backup/Restore commands in the File submenu).
  • The ability to undo/redo made changes in the main Configuration window is added (see the Undo/Redo commands in the Actions submenu).
  • The separate Start/Stop Actual Window Guard hotkeys are replaced with the single Toggle Actual Window Guard hotkey.

New in Actual Window Guard 6.3 (Nov 22, 2010)

  • The option to select which kind of click (single or double) on the program's tray icon is used to launch the Configuration is added.
  • Experimental feature: now it's possible not only to remove standard window parts (like title bar, resizable border, title buttons, etc.) but also to add them to certain windows (for example, you can add a general title bar to some window that does not have it so that you will be able to control that window via advanced title buttons of Actual Window Guard). Use cautiously!
  • The Pin to Desktop action now works correct under Vista/7 (but it's incompatible with the transparency effect).
  • Multiple Specific settings can be selected in several ways:
  • by pressing and holding the left mouse button and dragging the "rubber frame" over desired items
  • by holding the Shift key and clicking on some item above/below the selected one
  • by holding the Shift key and pressing the Up/Down keys
  • Specific Settings list and Exclusions list do not display the value of criterion (class, caption, program) for a certain item if the criterion in this item is disabled.
  • Configuration panels can be scrolled with the mouse wheel.
  • Invoking the advanced window functions by clicking on standard window parts did not work in Office 2007/2010 windows.
  • If the Configuration window was closed on a secondary monitor and then the monitor had been unplugged - the Configuration window had not returned into a visible desktop area.

New in Actual Window Guard 6.2 (Aug 5, 2010)

  • Support of regular expressions has been added for the Window Caption
  • criterion.
  • At the high load on the system (with dozens of windows opened at once),
  • the program began to consume too much graphic resources under Windows 7 x64.
  • The "Move to monitor at startup" options were not available on the Position
  • property sheet of the Default window settings.

New in Actual Window Guard 6.1 (Jun 5, 2010)

  • The button to invoke the Context Help in the Options window has been added.
  • The ability to create specific window settings from the Windows Monitoring Log window is added.
  • Administrative tools (like Regedit, Event Viewer, etc.) are now extended in Vista/7.
  • Support of console windows under Windows 7 is improved.
  • Separate Configuration dialog opened for certain window settings now displays the name of settings being edited.
  • Monitors' ordinal numbers displayed in the lists of available displays now match actual display device indexes shown when you press the "Identify" button in the Windows Display Properties dialog.
  • Change Window Icon action now uses high quality versions of icons under Windows 7.
  • The multi-selection editing mode is significantly accelerated for large quantities of selected window settings.

New in Actual Window Guard 6.0 (Jun 5, 2010)

  • The console windows support is available on Windows 7.
  • Checking for updates online by contacting Actual Tools website and
  • retrieving information about latest version available has been added.
  • The check process can be launched either automatically with the defined
  • period (daily, weekly, monthly) or manually by pressing the Check Now
  • button (see the "Check for Updates" group in the General Options panel).
  • All executable files (including setups) are digitally signed.
  • The option to prevent running the library from the %Temp% folder has been added (see the "Run the library from the installation folder" option in the "Control Center Options" group).
  • Move to Monitor at Startup action is available in the Default settings.
  • You can specify the "Primary" value for the "Target monitor" option
  • of the Move to Monitor at Startup action.
  • The ability to send a window to bottom upon its startup is added.
  • New hotkey combinations to suspend/resume the Control Center
  • (Ctrl+Alt+Num-/Ctrl+Alt+Num+ by default, respectively) have been added.
  • Please note that they are disabled by default.
  • You can finely tune the blocking of window appearance before startup actions (like Align/Resize) are applied: if the default blocking mode causes any problems you can enable the compatibility mode or turn the blocking off
  • completely.
  • Tracking of window caption changes has been improved.
  • The "Keep persistent" option of the Change Window Caption action has been
  • restored so that one might just freeze certain window caption string,
  • without the need to specify the replacing string value.
  • The problem with the not responding Control Center while logging off is
  • fixed.
  • Intermittent crashes of Control Center after reboot are fixed.
  • The intermittent crashes of applications written in Visual Basic have been
  • fixed.
  • Crash of some programs (e.g. WinZip 14 Professional) when using system
  • menu commands has been fixed.

New in Actual Window Guard 5.4 (Jul 9, 2009)

  • The core engine has been slightly improved: now startup actions are applied to a window before it becomes visible so there will be no annoying blinking when changing window's position/size upon its startup
  • Conflicts with the following products have been fixed:
  • Microsoft NetMeeting
  • NetOp Remote Control (Host)
  • RAdmin Server
  • Ad Muncher
  • Calendar Magic
  • Microsoft Flight Simulator X

New in Actual Window Guard 5.3 (Mar 31, 2009)

  • The Description field is added for Default settings.
  • The Description field is added for Exclusions.
  • The amount of consumed Windows graphics resources is decreased significantly (this prevents the resource exhaustion when too many windows stay open).
  • Now Configuration windows remember their Maximized state between sessions.
  • The Description edit field at the Index panel now automatically wraps its content and automatically fills the rest of panel's area.
  • The bug in Configuration user interface with non-disappearing horizontal scroll bar is fixed.
  • Now the additional title buttons and system window menu items work as expected in Windows Live Mail.
  • Now console windows are correctly extended in the zero user session on Windows XP SP3 and Windows 2003.
  • The long unwanted pause, when closing console windows via Close title button, is removed.
  • Retrieving current displacement for a window with the Window Finder in the "Align at startup to" group now correctly considers multiple monitors (shift values are calculated relative to window's host monitor, not the primary monitor).
  • The "Restrict placement" function now correctly handles the maximized windows.
  • Windows Layout tool now skips the full-screen windows.
  • Windows Layout tool is now compatible with Plemsoft's PowerBar.
  • The crash of Windows Vista Snipping Tool, when closing it, is fixed.

New in Actual Window Guard 5.2 (Oct 15, 2008)

  • [*] Now you can cancel the changes of Target Window edit fields made with the Window Finder by pressing the Escape key.
  • [*] Now the window settings commands (like "Modify applied settings", "Create new specific settings", "Exclude this window") open the specially designed light-weight Configuration dialog containing the subject settings only.
  • [*] The overall stability is improved when running on Windows x64.
  • [-] The bug caused the Explorer crash when trying to delete files under Windows Vista/2008 x64 is fixed.
  • [-] Now Total Commander refreshes its file lists as usual while being pinned to desktop.
  • [-] Now Windows Layout tool is compatible with Vista Sidebar.
  • [-] No more crashes of NoteZilla when closing its Preferences dialog.

New in Actual Window Guard 5.1 (Jun 28, 2008)

  • Now you can edit multiple specific settings at once in the Configuration.
  • The compatibility mode for moving maximized windows between monitors is added: if you have troubles when trying to move a maximized window to another monitor then try to activate this mode to fix the problems.

New in Actual Window Guard 4.5 (Jun 27, 2007)

  • Windows Monitoring Log tool is added into the Control Center. It allows detecting newly appeared windows and check, which window rule has been applied in each particular case. Now you can easily solve any configuration ambiguities and detect properties of short-living windows (like tool tips,popup menus etc.). Be careful using this feature: turned on it may slow down your system!
  • The new great long-awaited "Run keyboard macro" feature is added: now you can define the keyboard macro and send it to a certain window at its startup, thus automating some regular initial actions.
  • The new "Change program affinity" feature is added: if using a multi-processor system, now you can control, which physical processors a particular application should run on.
  • The ability to hide the mouse pointer, while it is floating over the specific window, is added.
  • The ability to copy settings from a selected window rule to others is added.
  • The new hotkeys are added:
  • "Reapply settings" action (Win F5 by default)
  • Configuration Module's launch (Win C by default)
  • "Unhide" submenu that shows the list of currently minimized/hidden windows (Win H by default)
  • Now the hotkey status is displayed in the "Hotkeys" panel of the "Options" window: when defining a new key combination, you can see, if the defined combination is already in use with another application or assigned to another action.
  • The new "Keep window caption persistent" option is added to the "Change window caption" feature.
  • Now the balloon tip is shown over the Control Center's tray icon at first start after the installation.
  • Translation to the Dutch language is added (thanks to Onno Verschoor).
  • The internal mechanism of hotkeys processing is significantly improved.
  • The "Index" window rule panel is updated: now it displays all currently enabled windows settings of a certain rule.
  • The options structure is redesigned: new "Triggers" and "Actions" grouping nodes are added.
  • The "Hide Configuration Module while using Window Finder" option has been moved from General to User Interface.
  • The placement restriction area visualization is improved for non-standard taskbar placements.
  • Compatibility conflicts are solved with:
  • - Quattro Pro X3 menus
  • - GrabIt internal windows
  • - MS Office XP CTFMON.EXE service
  • - X-NetStat application
  • The conflict with the Microsoft Time Zone window is solved.
  • Windows Layout tool now correctly handles maximized windows.
  • Windows Layout tool now correctly handles Photoshop CS2 document windows while working in a multiple display environment.
  • Now the "Configure..." item of Control Center tray icon's context menu is displayed correctly in Windows Vista.
  • The conflict with the IE 7 "Search on this page" window is solved.
  • The bug of incorrect behavior of "Restrict placement" feature in multi-monitor configurations is fixed.

New in Actual Window Guard 4.4 (Apr 19, 2007)

  • The long-awaited feature of "smart saving" is added: now only relevant
  • windows will re-apply their settings when the configuration has been saved.
  • The Windows Layout tool is added: it provides the ability to automatically or manually relocate/resize your currently opened windows to keep them within desktop when its resolution is changed (it's very useful when working with the same workstation both locally and through the Remote Desktop client).
  • The long-awaited feature is added: now it's possible to remove the standard window parts like Minimize/Maximize/Close buttons, window icon, window sizeable border, or window caption so fixing window in its current state and preventing its moving/resizing/minimizing/closing.
  • The new Pin-to-Desktop feature is added: when window is pinned it disappears from taskbar and Alt-Tab sequence and can't be minimized in any way so it's visible all the time until it's unpinned.
  • The ability is added to adjust the font used by the Configuration Module (refer to the "User Interface" property sheet in the "Options" window).
  • The ability is added for the "Send Configuration to Tech Support" main menu command: if the automatic e-mail creation is failed then you can save the archive with the configuration files somewhere to send it manually later.
  • Translations to Brazilian Portuguese, Serbian (both Latin and Cyrillic) and Polish languages are added.
  • Run-time memory consumption is slightly reduced.
  • All property sheets for window rule settings are significantly redesigned;
  • the new window rule features' Index panel is added.
  • Now the Configuration Module remembers its main toolbars' placement and column widths in most of list boxes.
  • The Resize Action Options property sheet is improved: now you can copy items and adjust the height of Sizes list box.
  • The visualization of allowed area provided by the Show button of the
  • "Restrict placement" feature is improved: now it displays the
  • semi-transparent green rectangle that shows the area of allowed placement.
  • The bug with Microsoft Project 2002/2003 is fixed.
  • The bug with command shell extenders (like 4NT) is fixed.
  • The bug is fixed: if in multi-monitor configuration some windows were placed to a secondary display, and it was unplugged during the session then such windows are moved automatically to the primary display.
  • The bug with Microsoft Office Shortcut Bar's hang is fixed.
  • Conflicts with Microsoft Office 2007 tool tips and popup menus are fixed.
  • The bug of incorrect window placement to a primary display while it's resized on secondary display is fixed.
  • The bug of adding a new rule to the empty Specific Windows list is fixed.

New in Actual Window Guard 4.1 (Aug 2, 2006)

  • Multi-monitor support: the ability to move a window to the selected monitor at window's startup is added.
  • The ability to maximize window to desktop by the right-click on the standard
  • Maximize title button is added.
  • The ability to stretch window by the right-click on its border is added.
  • The translations to Japanese, Russian, Chinese Simplified and Chinese Traditional are added.
  • The work speed and overall stability were slightly improved.
  • The bug with the internal windows of MS Visual Studio 2003/2005 is fixed.
  • The bug is fixed: even if the maximal window size was constrained in the configuration, the Maximize button still had expanded it to the whole desktop.
  • The minor visual glitch with the Excluded Windows list in the right pane is fixed.