Antonio Sánchez Fajardo in this Code Project Article reveals this little trick to dismiss the standard title bar but retain the border.
vb.net Code:
Public Class Form1 ' with Form1.ControlBox = False Protected Overrides ReadOnly Property CreateParams As System.Windows.Forms.CreateParams Get Dim CP = MyBase.CreateParams CP.Style = CP.Style And Not &HC00000 Return CP End Get End Property End Class
The great advantage of VB.Net at this point is that its more robust support for forms means that it is not required to add handlers for resizing and other form manipulation and you can get on to the design of your title/control bars without further adjustments.