Thankfully, the free WinSize2 utility can help with that. So, let’s see how you can use it to keep your desktop organized by “sticking” windows to their spot.

How to Download & Install WinSize2

Since it’s a third-party tool, it’s not included with Windows. Thus, to use it, you will have to download the app from the official WinSize2 site.

After you download and install it, you won’t see anything on your screen. The app will run in the background, hidden from sight, waiting for your input. As we’ll see next, its interface will be accessible from an icon in the window tray.

Before you access WinSize2’s interface, we should warn you that it looks ancient. That’s because, well, it is ancient.

WinSize2 was released over a decade ago, but that’s not a negative. On the contrary, it remains relevant many Windows versions later, the time since its release not affecting its usefulness.

We also ought to mention two alternatives: Snap Layouts and PowerToys’ FancyZones. If you don’t care about actually saving each window’s placement and dimensions, but only want to keep your desktop tidy, those two can do the trick.

Both allow you to organize your windows on predefined “areas” on the desktop, but Snap Layouts are only available on Windows 11, while PowerToys FancyZones also work on past versions of Microsoft’s OS. For more on them, check our article on how to use Snap Layouts in Windows 11, and our guide on how to customize and use PowerToys FancyZones on Windows 10.

How to Insta-Lock Window Positions

Point your mouse cursor at WinSize2’s icon, lingering in the Windows tray. You will see a hovering bubble with its version and active hotkey.

You can use this hotkey combination, by default mapped to Ctrl + Alt + Z, to save any window’s position and dimensions on any desktop spot.

WinSize2 works even on multi-monitor setups. However, it might not be enough for true visual organization of your workspace. If you’re using a 4K or Ultrawide monitor, also check out our article on the best Virtual Monitor apps to maximize your Ultrawide monitor.

Let’s see WinSize2 in action, using one of the powerful Directory Opus file manager’s “Lister” windows as our guinea pig.

With the window whose placement and dimensions you want to save visible, move it and resize it anywhere on your desktop, precisely as you’d like it to show up in the future.

With the window active and selected, to create an entry for it and save its spot and size, press WinSize2’s hotkey button combination (by default Ctrl + Alt + Z).

Almost immediately, a message will appear hovering next to your mouse cursor, informing you about the action’s success.

That was it! If you try closing and reopening the window, you will see it reappear on the same spot with the exact dimensions. Try moving it around and closing it. When it shows up again, instead of popping up on a random location on your desktop, WinSize2 will detect its appearance, and move and resize it wherever you “pinned” it.

How to Overwrite Hidden Rules

WinSize2 works by creating a rule for the active window every time you use its shortcut.

If you ever change your mind about where and how a window should appear, you can use the same shortcut to create a new rule overwriting the previous one.

If you want to unlock a window or manually position and resize it, you can do it through WinSize2’s interface, as we’ll see next.

How to Delete Rules and Unlock Windows

To unlock a window after you create a WinSize2 rule for it, you will have to delete that rule. For that, you will have to pay a visit to WinSize2’s main window.

Locate WinSize2’s icon in the Windows tray and double-click on it.

With WinSize2’s window on your screen, and while on the WinTitle tab, notice the pull-down menu under Complete Title of the Window. In it, you will find entries for all the rules WinSize2 created for various windows.

Each entry is named after the title of the window it targets. To help you ensure you’ve chosen the correct one, WinSize2 also displays a window’s process under the right corner of the pull-down menu.

To delete an entry, after finding and selecting it from the pull-down menu, turn your attention to the panel on the right of the window titled Delete/Change.

You can also use the buttons with arrows to move between entries while clicking the Delete button will remove the selected rule from WinSize2’s list.

Manual Positioning & Resizing

While selecting different entries in WinSize2, you might have noticed the numbers under X- / Y-Coordinate and Width / Height changing. That’s because those numbers define a window’s placement on the screen.

The first set of numbers under X- / Y-Coordinate define a window’s top left corner coordinates on the horizontal and vertical axis of the monitor.

So, if, for example, you set them both to zero, the window’s top left corner will be aligned with the top left corner of your monitor.

If you’re using a Full-HD monitor and you set the first number to 960 and the second to 540 (the result of the monitor’s resolution, 1920 by 1080, each number divided by 2), the window’s top left corner will be aligned to the center of your monitor.

The second set of numbers defines the width and height of the window. So, if you enter the same numbers here, too, 960 and 540, the window will take up a quarter of your screen (half the horizontal and half the vertical resolution).

Remember that if you make any tweaks or changes to a rule, you should click on OK afterward to save them.

WinSize Can Lock Icons, Too

Do you hate how Windows blissfully ignores how you’ve “organized” your shortcut icons on your desktop and rearranges them after a resolution change?

Thankfully, WinSize2 allows you also to save your icon positions. It can even save different icon arrangements for different monitor resolutions.

To fully take advantage of the feature and ensure your desktop shortcuts stay in place, pay a visit to the WinSize2 windows’s Desktop Icon + Network tab. There, ensure Auto check of icon positions after login and Check icon positions after changed screen resolution are enabled.

You can also use the Save Icon positions button here to save your current desktop icons setup.

Remember to click the OK button afterward to save any changes you make.

You don’t have to visit WinSize2’s window whenever you want to save your icon positions. This action is also accessible through its tray icon’s right-click menu.

By right-clicking on it, under the Desktop Icon Positions submenu, you will find three entries that allow you to quickly:

Save icon positions. Restore icon positions. Check for changed icon positions.

Keep WinSize2 in the Tray

WinSize2 doesn’t tap into hidden or undocumented Windows features to achieve its goals since such features aren’t there in the first place.

Instead, it’s an intelligent script that continuously monitors any window on the screen. If the window matches one of WinSize2’s rules, it moves and resizes it accordingly.

We clarify that because to take advantage of what WinSize2 offers, you will have to keep it running in the background. Thankfully, the app has minimal overhead and doesn’t present annoying nag screens bugging you to register.

Do you want an easy way to ensure it will always be available, running in the background and keeping tags on your windows? Pay a visit to the Special tab of its window.

There, ensure that Start WinSize2 with Login is enabled. With that option checked, WinSize2 will run automatically every time you log in to your desktop.

WinSize2: Old, but Still Useful

Despite being an old piece of software by today’s standards, as we saw, WinSize2 is anything but obsolete.

All thanks to Microsoft’s insistence on not adding such a simple feature as user-controllable perpetual window placement and icon positioning to its dominant OS.

Until it does, WinSize2 will have a place in every Windows installation.