I was working on Paint.NET when I realized that the Layers window is missing. Yeah, this layer window:

I tried to press F7 to hide/show the Layers window, but it was nowhere to find.

I googled for this issue, but from what I read, people simply shrug it off. One person said in multi-display setup, the window might appears in the other monitor. I do have another monitor attached to my laptop, extending the display. But I simply can’t find the Layers window in both display.

I even uninstall, then re-install Paint.NET. But the problem persists.

Then I remember an old application that I used to automate data insertion in SAP, AutoHotKey. I remember it has functions to retrieve information of a window, and to manipulate window’s behavior.

After download and install it, I created a new folder to put the script file. On the explorer window, I right-clicked, New -> AutoHotKey script

I then edit the new .ahk script using Notepad++. First, let’s check if we can find the window

WinGet, id, PID, Layers
MsgBox, Paint.NET PID is %id%

To run the code, I simply right-click on the file, then click “Run Script”

The message box appears:

Let’s verify if this information correct by looking into Windows’ Task Manager, and find Paint.NET’s process.

Look’s like we get the correct window. Next, let’s try to find its position:

WinGetPos, X, Y, W, H, Layers
MsgBox, Layers is at %X%`,%Y% and its size is %W%x%H%

When I run above code:

Yikes, that’s outside the visible boundary of both of my displays. Thankfully, we can move it somewhere visible.

WinMove, Layers,, 100, 100 

After I run above code, the Layers window is now appear and I can continue working on Paint.NET as usual.

That’s it friends. I hope it helps!

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