What’s that about? Sometimes Windows annoys its users with grayed out buttons. The intended functions are then apparently just a mouse click away, but cannot be triggered. In this case, a clever freeware can help to bring these functions back to life.
Buttons in programs are designed to be clicked, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes certain functions cannot be accessed, the buttons are grayed out under Windows. Here you can click until you black out or grab a little helper.
The freeware ForceToolkit could be the solution in such a case, because under certain circumstances you can force the successful click. Grayed-out checkboxes or other controls such as sliders can suddenly be used again.
Force mouse click
ForceToolkit is a lightweight and portable program. So you don’t have to install it first. When you come across a grayed-out button you’d like to click, drag ForceToolkit’s crosshairs over the button in question.
Then release the mouse button and select “Force to Enable” under “Operations”. Confirm your selection with another mouse click on “Apply”. Now the button should lose its gray haze and be clickable.
In our tests, this did not always work, but the makers state this on their website. It’s still worth a try, although you should exercise caution here.
Normally, the greyed-out buttons are an indication that certain functions are deliberately not available or that you have not yet filled out certain fields in a form that are important. It doesn’t always make sense to force the functions and that’s exactly what ForceToolkit does.
Even more functions
ForceToolkit has even more features ready. You can also hide windows or complete programs, always keep programs in view via top view or change window titles.
Even if programs don’t offer a way to change the window size, you can force it with ForceToolkit. If you don’t want more but less functionality in a program, you can also remove elements from programs.
Unfortunately, the program is only available with an English interface, but operation should not be a major problem for most users.