Its not the first time we received this query. Lots of people want to hide the Command Bar aka Folder Band in Windows Vista and 7 Explorer so that they can get more free space in the Explorer window.

Today in this tutorial, we'll tell you how to set the Command Bar auto-hidden in Explorer window. In this way, it'll only appear when you hover your mouse cursor over it as shown in following screenshots:

Auto-Hidden Command Bar aka Folder Band:

Command Bar aka Folder Band appears upon hovering mouse cursor:

To make the Command Bar auto-hidden, you'll have to edit the "Shellstyle.dll" file which is present inTheme directory.

For example, if you are using default Window Aero theme, you'll get the "Shellstyle.dll" file in following directory:

%windir%\Resources\Themes\Aero\Shell\NormalColor

You just need to follow these simple steps to make Command Bar auto-hidden:

1. Open "Shellstyle.dll" file in Resource Hacker.

2. Now go to "UIFILE -> 1 -> 1033".

3. Press ctrl +F or click on "View -> Find Text..." option and type following in "Find what" textbox: