Windows allows changing how long notifications persist on screen through built-in settings, but there are some limitations. The maximum banner duration is 5 minutes via the standard Settings menu, but you can use a registry modification to go beyond this value. However, making notifications fully persistent or truly “indefinite” as an always-on-screen alert is not natively supported and may not align with Microsoft’s user experience guidelines.
Adjust Banner Duration via Settings
- Open Windows Settings.
- Go to Accessibility (or “Ease of Access” on some versions), then Visual effects.
- Find the option Dismiss notifications after this amount of time.
- Select a duration up to 5 minutes from the dropdown (5, 7, 15, 30 seconds, 1 minute, or 5 minutes).
BEST SOLUTION Beyond 5 Minutes: Registry Edit
If a longer banner duration is required, use Registry Editor:
- Open
regeditand navigate to:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Accessibility
- Find the
MessageDurationDWORD value. - Double-click, set to “Decimal”, and enter the number of seconds (e.g., 3600 for 1 hour).
- WE SET OURS TO 24 HOURS – 86000 SECONDS.
- Restart Windows for changes to take effect.
Technical and Platform Limits
- Banner notifications cannot be truly “indefinite”; the Action Center (notification history) will retain them until dismissed, but banners themselves are only designed to persist for a timed period.
- UWP and Win32 notifications can be shown for extended periods via periodic updates or creative use of APIs, but keeping a toast notification non-dismissable indefinitely is not supported and may violate design guidelines.
- For scripting/test purposes, use PowerShell to test balloon tip durations, but these are still limited to values Windows will accept.