7 Taskbar Tweaker
This programs enables you to tweak your Windows 7 taskbar.
Features:
- Show standard window menu on right click instead of jump list.
- Close or focus a window on middle click instead of running a new instance.
- Disable grouping of windows by file path or application id.
- Cycle through windows of a grouped button on left click instead of showing a thumbnails preview.
- Open with while dropping a file on a taskbar button instead of pinning.
- Disable thumbnail previews.
Tested on Windows 7 RTM 7600 Ultimate only.
Available for x86 and x64 systems.
7_Taskbar_Tweaker.rar (47.8 KB) 7_Taskbar_Tweaker_x64.rar (49.87 KB)
I’ve opened a uservoice page where you can suggest and vote for features, or report bugs. If I’ll like it and it won’t be too complicated to do, I’ll possibly do it, but don’t expect too much 
Hi Michael
This program looks very promising, but could usse some extra features. Will you be continuing development?
Thanks
crusy
Hi crusy,
Is there something specific you wanna see? I’ve got several suggestions like allowing to reorder the thumbnails inside grouped buttons, but it’s not something easily doable, and doesn’t seem too important for me to spend time on.
I would really like to see reordering within group. There should be an option to, e.g. shift+drag will reorder within group. Normal drag will perform regular 7 behavior. That’s the ONLY feature I’m looking for:).
I didn’t know before I came across this page that shift+right click could open the regular menu.
Ungrouping doesn’t seem to work or perhaps different meaning of ungroup?
Would be cool if all my firefox buttons in taskbar could be moved independently like in Vista/XP/etc
Like this?
You have to reopen the windows for ungrouping to take place.
Hello RaMMicHaeL. Very good applications. Thank you very much.
Interesting program, very well put together.
If I might suggest another tweak to add it would to be able to modify the live preview, as outlined on this website:
http://www.askvg.com/how-to-turn-off-taskbar-thumbnail-live-previews-in-windows-7/comment-page-2/#comments
The method on the site doesn’t work, but it’s definitely a tweak people want to achieve, myself included.
If I may be so bold, what I specifically want to adjust is when I hover my cursor over a thumbnail preview, that Aero peak is disabled, in that the window still jumps to the front of the screen and is visible, but all the other windows don’t turn transparent
Let me know what you think of this feature and if it could apply to your program.
What’s the point of such tweak? If you want the window to jump on front, just left click on it.
I thought about something else, though: providing an option to use aero peek when hovering the taskbar button, and not the thumbnail (while thumbnails are disabled).
Thanx for program – it is working!
In Windows 7 when grouping is on, the number of combined taskbar windows is not calculated and shown next to the combined buttons. The 7 Taskbar supports dynamic overlays so would it be possible to the number using overlays? Or is it that only the developer of XYZ app can do it for its own app?
Another request from me is can you make clicking on a grouped thumbnail minimize it when the same thumbnail’s window is already active/in the foreground? If the app was in the background and its thumbnail was clicked, only then it should switch to that app, This was the behavior on Windows XP when grouping was on. In Windows 7, clicking a grouped application’s taskbar button or thumbnail when it is active (in the foreground) ot inactive (in the background) always switches to that app. Only ungrouped application buttons minimize upon being clicked again.
I remember myself trying to do that, without any results.
Perhaps I’ll try it again one day if I’ll be extremely bored…
Just wanted to thank you for the nice tweak!
I set the taskbar to never combine, and it was driving me nuts the way Win7 regroups the applications by their ID. It makes it very hard to open the desired instance of the web browsing or file explorer application.
Win7 taskbar sucks without your tweak, I do not know why M$ came wit this crap.
Great Utility, the gair of XP’s Taskbar shuffle.
I would really like to see two more options:
1. grouping tasks by dragging them on each other.
2. minimize task to systray
1. Too complicated.
2. There are lots of apps around which offer this feature.
Some features that at least I would really like to see:
* Grouping by application individually (plus saving and deleting from this list).
* Adding the Standard window menu options to the Jump list (making the Standard window menu redundant).
* Assigning the right- and middle-click options, including the Standard window menu options, to either the right or the middle button.
* Hiding labels with “Never combine” enabled.
* Not focusing right-clicked windows when grouping is disabled.
1. I’ll consider that.
2. Nah.
3. Do you have some specific combination you think would look really cool?
4. Choose “Always combine, hide labels” and disable grouping in the tweaker.
5. Why?
Useful app, thanks! I think the option to cycle through windows when clicking groups should be built in to Windows. Gets some of the directness from the old taskbar back.
Hello,
I have installed “7 Taskbar Tweaker” on my W7-64 bit PC. But I get, with Run at startup, error-messages:
1. At startup: “Not attached to explorer”.
2. When I want to change something in the Main-menu:
“Could not load library”.
I cannot find what these errors mean. I think that the program is working fine. But there are those error-messages ! Greetings Jan.
Can you specify the exact version of your Windows 7? (Win-R -> “cmd”, first line)
Hi Michael,
The answer is:
Microsoft Windows [version 6.1.7600].
Greetings JanJ.
I had a copy of Windows 7 x64 laying around, so I’ve checked it out. Works like a charm.
Perhaps it’s a language (I doubt though) or edition (Home, Ultimate, etc.) issue. Which ones do you use?
Hi Micheal,
I have Windows7 Ultimate 64bit English edition.
Strange thing is that not always the problems appear. Sometimes no error-message appear at startup and f.i. “don’t group” is functioning, but at other times the error-message (startup) appears and then also the there is “grouping”. I don’t know why. I do nothing different in both situations, only booting.
Thanks for your reply, JanJ.
Hmm, maybe the tweaker starts before explorer does, and thus fails to inject.
What if you restart the tweaker?
Also, I think you’ve mixed up the messages, “Could not load library” should show on startup, and “Not attached to explorer” on settings apply. Double check that.
Hi Michael,
You are right about the mixing up.
I think I have resolved the problem, using a program “Startup Delayer”. With this program I start “7 Taskbar Tweaker” 15 sec. later than normal. In order to be sure to startup after Explorer. I see now no Error-messages. Thanks for help. Greetings JanJ.
AWSOME application. However can you add a option to Group everything but specific programs?
~Waiting for a reply.
Thanks for the app RaMMicHaeL.By the way, is there any way to scroll through different group of super bar icons without clicking on that small vertical bar?
Hmm, what?
I downloaded the 7_Taskbar_Tweaker.rar file but when I try to extract it, it tells me the file is corrupt. Any idea what could be going wrong?
I’m using the 32bit version of Win7
There was a problem with server configuration and IE, which is now fixed.
i tried downloading the rar file and unzip with WinRAR but i keep getting error message:
! C:\Users\dANIEL\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.IE5\2RN130XN\7_Taskbar_Tweaker_x64[1].rar: Unexpected end of archive
am i doing something wrong?
i’m using win 7 64bit home premium
thanx
Again thanks for the great gadget! It is now one of the very first applications I install on any new machine
I have had two problems with Win7:
1- Taskbar rearrange problem ( now fixed thanks to you)
2- Too shiny taskbar, the application in focus has a glassy highlight, as opposed to XP’s shadow (giving it a pressed button look). My eyes try very hard to find which instance of an application (now ungrouped) is active. It is silly how much such a simple task affects productivity. M$ has done a pretty bad job in user interface this time.
Have you considered opening the source of your tweaker? I guess you get tons of people that can take some part of the code, specially I know you might have some other jobs to do.
Thanks again
> Too shiny taskbar
I don’t really get what you say.
Here is a screenshot for example:
http://rammichael.com/7-taskbar-tweaker#comment-13
Now, you say it’s difficult for you to determine which window is active?
Whatever you mean, there’s an option to change the glass’ color.
> Have you considered opening the source of your tweaker?
Tons of people? Heh
Well, there is actually a chance I’ll make it open source one day, but right now I don’t feel like doing it.
This application is great. I was getting sick of having to move my mouse an extra 20 pixels to close an app, or hold down shift to open the old style context menu. It sounds ridiculous but it truly annoyed the hell out of me. I can see where the new default context menu can be useful, but not so much for power users. Then after I swapped them around I saw the middle click to close option, and that’s just pure win. Good work
Danke, sehr hilfreich =)
thanks alot!
Great app!
Just one thing, I like to start my programs from the Start Menu, instead of using the registry to run it. I would prefer if there would be an option to minimze to tray when the program is started. In that way I can savely place the shortcut in the Start Menu. The only drawback is that folders that are already displayed stay grouped. It would be cool if you could do a refresh when your app starts.
Use the -hidewnd command line switch to run the program minimized to tray.
You can also use -hidetray to hide the tray icon.
> It would be cool if you could do a refresh when your app starts.
I tried to find a good way to do that, but the best I could do is “refreshing” the taskbar, which reorders the taskbar buttons.
Perhaps you can add it in as an option. I would not mind the reordering of the few open taskbar folder icons when booting. I would appriciate it very much.
See this image: http://www.withinwindows.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/composite.png. In Milestone 2, the taskbar showed like XP how many programs were grouped if more than 2. I guess that would be difficult or impossible to do?
Excellent program, I’m using it now, and I plan to from now on
Thanks for perfecting windows 7′s taskbar! (I don’t know why the “cycle between open windows on click” function isn’t standard (or at least available) in windows 7!)
this is a great tool. Are you accepting donations? If so what is your paypal id.
So how do I donate money for this? I’d like to pay for this if possible.
It finally fixes my number one gripe width W7 taskbar. Finally I can run with grouped tasks without swearing every time I have to spend several seconds to switch between apps because someone decided that left click should be the same as “hover” when multiple instances of an app are open.
Great Tool!
Labeling by application individually (plus saving and deleting from this list).
See Shot:
http://xrl.in/5we5
(in this example only the explorer had labels)
- OR -
minimal solution whould be that programs who had opened more than 1 instance show labels. This whould be only one option in your tweak.
thanks!
Greetings from germany
Dominic
I love the middle-click close and the window cycling. I work with things grouped anyway so don’t use the ungrouping options, but would *really* love to be able to re-order withing a group, which currently I can’t do. That’s the only thing left to get win7 working just the way I like it. (c:
One quick note on commandline options however – if I put the -hidetray before the -hidewnd option, the window doesn’t hide, but if I put them the other way round it works fine.
> if I put the -hidetray before the -hidewnd option, the window doesn’t hide, but if I put them the other way round it works fine.
Couldn’t reproduce – works fine for me.
…the reordering within a group is especially requested because sometimes when windows gets busy (st00p1d NTFS $LogFile bottleneck issue) and a task becomes unresponsive, win7 decides to arbitrarily reorder the tasks within a group, which I have no way of fixing other than closing the offending tasks and re-opening them in the right order…
hey i am aware that this is a .rar file. i do not know how to download these. please help! it says that i don’t have the program to open this file?
Use WinRAR:
http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm
Or use the WobZIP online service:
http://wobzip.org/index.php?type=url&url=http://rammichael.com/downloads/7_Taskbar_Tweaker.rar
These taskbar thumbnails have been driving me mad and I have looked everywhere and tried everything to get rid of them with no success – until now!
Great post. Thank you so much!
Agreed – great app! Are you taking donations?
hi,
thx for the tool. i totally need the standard window menu on right click!
a) would u mind making it open source or making the source otherwise accessible ?
b) the middle button to close a task doesnt quite hit the spot for me. being able to do this with shift+left click would be better for me. if u could add that, it be great. (who ever needs opening the same app?)
Hello RamMichael!
Your program is great! Now I could get rid of grouping on the taskbar. What I’d like to have is an option to disable grouping in the notification area as well. Do you think it’s possible? Or is there a setting for this?
Grouping in the notification area? What do you mean?
Hello!
See the screenshot below:
http://img51.imageshack.us/i/taskbarb.png
The two firefox icons are next to each other. But I’d like to have them in the same order I minimize or open the windows. For example: emule, firefox 1, load!, utorrent, firefox 2, thunderbird, …, firefox 3.
Consider this yet another request for being able to reorder within groups. I know it’s more difficult to do than you want to spend time on doing right now. But who knows, if a hundred or so people say they like it you might be overcome with a philanthropic desire to do it.
Heck, I’d even be willing to PayPal you the price of a McDonald’s cheeseburger. If a hundred people or so would be willing to do the same thing; whoah would you be stuffed!
Heh, philanthropic desire, McDonald’s cheeseburger. You are really desperate, aren’t you?
Sorry, but… no. It really is complicated to do without the sources or open APIs. Even if I do spend nights understanding how this stuff works, I’m not gonna use it myself (I don’t like grouping in general, and keep it disabled). So why bother?
Thanks! The way the left mouse click on the taskbar works by default drove me crazy.
Thanks so much for this. The pesky “taskbar preview thumbnails” have been driving me nuts….now they’re gone!
you rock
How do you remove this program? Everything that this program has messed with, I would like to reverse it. thanks Why no uninstaller? these days, its a common rule to include an uninstaller.
There is nothing to uninstall, just remove the exe file. If you want to remove all the registry entries created by the tweaker, uncheck all the options and remove it from startup.
Hello RaMMicHaeL,
Nice little tool
Love the right click->standard window menu option. When you click on a taskbar button for an open program and move your mouse upwards, it pops up the jump list. Would it be possible to have an option to disable this as well? I am always accidentally moving my mouse slightly upwards when I click on a taskbar button to switch back to a program window, and the jump list popping up gets really annoying.
Thanks.
Never happens to me. Also, I find the jump list helpful at times, when e.g. I want to open another instance of the program, or go to it’s directory (shift+right click+open file location on the jump list does the trick).
It should not be difficult to disable it completely, but is kinda pointless.
Not pointless to me – accidentally activating that rotten jumplist happens to me dozens of times per day. Sigh – oh well, thanks anyway.
Thank you so much for making this, the taskbar finally works the way I want it to – Microsoft owes you one!
Thank god. It was so annoying how I couldn’t ungroup taskbar icons that were from the same program. Why in hell would microsoft take this feature out from vista? I swear to god I hope everyone at microsoft dies in a firey car crash. Yes, let’s just arbitrarily take out features. wtf are they high on H?
Thanks for the app.
I am only using it to ungroup the applications.
I have also pinned some (non-running) applications to the taskbar (e.g. thunderbird). Clicking on that icon creates another taskbar-entry, but leaving the “pinned-icon” unstarted.
See: http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/8017/7tt.png
Would it be possible to start the first instance of an application with its original group-id (I’m not sure if it works that way), so it will populate the pinned taskbar entry?
Release comments:
- You should label your x86 archive with x86 in the name.
- It would be nice if you assign a version number, that way we know if you updated it since you talk about doing improvement.
Feature requests:
- It would be nice to be able to group/ungroup without having to re-open, is it possible? (ok everything is probably possible, but I saw you talk about some stuff being complicated, is it that complicated? Or was it the drag onto each other to group that is complicated? Or you just find that the feature was complicated for an user? I think it could be useful)
- Thinking further, it would be nice to group program without these program to be the same, e.g. I might like to group 1 firefox with one explorer and one notepad that are related to the same work. And then when I move the “group” on the taskbar, they move all together! Do you think it is possible to do it? If Microsoft have created their grouping concept independently of program-id, it is maybe possible with minor tweak? I would love to see that.
- About the minimize to system tray, I don’t know if personally I really want that feature, but when you come to think of it, your program is useful to enhance Windows 7 taskbars and the system tray is a part of it, so it might be a cool idea to support in your application as it is not that out of scope, but I let you decide
- Some people might like to have a quick launch emule toolbar (we can maybe achieve this with a simple new toolbar)
For now I am mostly interested in the grouping/ungrouping feature if you find a way to do it (no need to do it with drag and drop if you even if that might be “cooler”, TaskArrange was a cool proggy and it was doing all the work in a separate windows, the same can apply to grouping/ungrouping)
> It would be nice if you assign a version number
There’s a version number when you hover the download link.
> – It would be nice to be able to group/ungroup without having to re-open, is it possible?
I tried to find a way to do that, and all I managed to do is “refreshing” the taskbar, which also reshuffles the buttons.
> – Thinking further, it would be nice to group program without these program to be the same, e.g. I might like to group 1 firefox with one explorer and one notepad that are related to the same work.
It might be possible, but may be problematic with windows that have multiple thumbnails for tabs, or a custom jump list.
> – About the minimize to system tray
There are lots of programs around which allow that feature.
> a quick launch emule toolbar
What?
What is the intended function of the “Thumbnail preview: Disable” checkbox? I was super excited when I found this utility (kudos to you for providing it freely!), but that checkbox doesn’t seem to do anything for me. Or, if it does, I can’t tell what it’s doing (it’s not having the effect I was hoping for).
What I was hoping for is this:
-Let’s say I have two Windows Explorer windows open, folder A and folder B.
-When I click the Windows Explorer icon on the taskbar, two little thumbnails pop up showing (totally pointless) snapshots of those folders.
-Instead, I would like to simply see a vertical stack of *text* options when I click the Taskbar icon (the way the group windows used to look in XP and Vista).
Isn’t that what “Thumbnail preview: Disable” is supposed to do?
Nope, “Thumbnail preview: Disable” disables thumbnails which appear when you hover over a button/group.
If you want to see a vertical stack of labels instead of the thumbnail images, there’s a registry tweak for this.
Set to 0 (default is 16):
NumThumbnails
as a DWORD in:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband
This is how to enable/disable quick launch bar in Windows 7:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/888-quick-launch-enable-disable.html
You might want to add a shortcut to do this in one click in your program.
Great, love being able to change the setting for “Left click on grouped button” the default was so annoying when switch back and forth between apps with multiple windows. Any chance of getting a best of both setting, where the when clicking it the windows cycle like they do now and the thumbnail preview is show as well?
Hello can you enable highlight freeze on task buttons?
This kinda be great!
screenshot here:
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/7745/taskbarb.jpg