Windows 10 Home desktop showing unwanted rulers on top and left side

Shelbydoo06

Prominent
Jul 12, 2017
8
0
510
Two days ago I noticed there were rulers on my desktop, one at the top and another on the left which I did not install. The rulers are light gray, about 1/8-inch wide and immovable. They appear to have something to do with the position of any open window because you can see the markings on the ruler move when I reposition a window. If I stop moving windows they fade away in about 5 seconds. I have multiple monitors but the rulers only exist on the primary monitor. I selected another monitor as my primary and the rulers moved to the newly selected primary monitor. I've done a cold reboot, checked programs and apps for 3rd party software I didn't install and changed my background theme but to no avail. I've searched and cannot find anything related to this issue. I would like to remove these, so I would appreciate any suggestions.
 


use a site like https://www.imgur.com. Drag and drop it onto the main page. Once it uploads mouse over the image and a little bar pops up on the upper right. On that click the little down arrow and click "Get share links". In the next box click "copy" next to the one that says BBCode (forums). Then in your reply just paste the code (right click -> paste - or ctrl + v).
 

Shelbydoo06

Prominent
Jul 12, 2017
8
0
510
I'm using only Windows themes.
I corrected the tenforums, I meant to ignore that one message as I couldn't figure out how to delete the message. I'm kind of a novice to the forum posting thing. I've read them before but never had to submit anything. I was always able to figure out any problem I was having mostly because others have had the same experience. I couldn't find anything on this issue.
I'll try the clean boot later and let you know.
 

Shelbydoo06

Prominent
Jul 12, 2017
8
0
510
No, I'm the only user.
Right, it is a measurement ruler. It measures the open active window and if you right-click on either ruler it changes the scale. I'm not sure what the scales are but there are three different scales for each ruler. There appears to be no pop-up box or any information it gives other than what the ruler markings do. It doesn't appear to be corrupt or malicious it just seems like something was inadvertantly turned on but I'll be darned if I know what that is. I'm going to try the clean boot that Colif recommended later and see if that results in anything. Feel free to keep asking questions because it might give me other ideas to try if the clean boot doesn't work.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
have a look in task manager and see if any strange things running there?

Could run process explorer and see if it shows more info

Download Process explorer and run it as admin (it comes from Microsoft so its safe)

the default view is tree structure meaning like your task manager screen, it will show what processes are under each service, and also shows the full path of all things running so might give a clue as to what its part of

Have you installed any new software recently?
 

Shelbydoo06

Prominent
Jul 12, 2017
8
0
510
Thanks, I'll look at the things you suggested.

I know those rulers appeared two days ago on July 10th and were not there before because I would have noticed...they're a bit annoying. The last time any software was installed/updated was July 7th. My computer is a two month old new build and so, is fairly clean and is easy to review for oddball items. I will review the things you suggested and let you know.
 

Shelbydoo06

Prominent
Jul 12, 2017
8
0
510
After doing a clean boot and through the process of elimination I determined that it was my Fullshot program which is an image capture program. One small checkmark next to "Capture Ruler" fixed the issue. I've used Fullshot for close to two decades and I've never seen this issue before. I do not recall putting that checkmark there but I do use the program quite often so it was probably done inadvertantly. A big THANK YOU! to Colif for his suggestion of a clean boot. Thank you all for your contributions.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
I was curious what it was myself, glad you told us. Its easy to misclick things and not know what happened, I accidentally turned spell check off in chrome last week and spent a few days wondering why.

Glad you worked it out :)