7+ Taskbar Tweaker

7+ Taskbar Tweaker
7+ Taskbar Tweaker allows you to configure various aspects of the Windows taskbar.
Most of the configuration options it provides can’t be tweaked using the taskbar properties or the registry.
The tweaker is designed for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.

Download

exe 7tt_setup.exe (1.78 MB, changelog)
Latest version: v5.15.1
Note: The installer can be used to extract a portable version. Refer to the FAQ below for details.

Beta version
exe 7tt_setup_beta.exe (1.79 MB, changelog)
Latest beta version: v5.15.1.2
More info about beta versions.

Windows 11 Support Status

  • 7+ Taskbar Tweaker doesn’t support the Windows 11 taskbar, and probably never will. See this blog post for more details.
  • Some of the tweaks are available in Windows 11 as Windhawk mods. See here for the list of mods, and vote for missing mods that you’d like to see implemented. Read more about Windhawk here.
  • 7+ Taskbar Tweaker works on Windows 11 with the old taskbar which can be restored with third party tools. See this blog post for more details.

Demo video

Here is a video that demonstrates some of the tweaks:

Source code

https://github.com/m417z/7-Taskbar-Tweaker

FAQ

Q: Which registry keys does 7+ Taskbar Tweaker modify? I don’t need extra processes in my system.
A: The only registry keys the tweaker modifies are its own settings. There are no registry keys for the options it provides. The tweaker does that by injecting a DLL to explorer, hooking/subclassing/some other methods of the dark side.
As for extra processes, the tweaker is a native program, and is very lightweight. It shouldn’t slow down your system, and uses an extremely small amount of memory. Also, you can hide the tray icon if you want.

In case you want to remove the tweaker’s settings from the registry, look for them here:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\7 Taskbar Tweaker
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run (“7 Taskbar Tweaker” value)

P.S. if you’re a programmer, you might want to take a look at the 7+ Taskbar Tweaking Library.

Q: My antivirus complains about 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.
A: It’s a false positive. I guarantee that the tweaker binaries (and any other files on this site, unless specifically noted) are 100% clean.
Also remember that the tweaker injects into explorer and modifies its memory, which is indeed suspicious.

Q: Can I Group/Combine/Label only some of the items on the taskbar?
A: Yes, use Taskbar Inspector.

Q: May I use 7+ Taskbar Tweaker in a commercial environment?
A: Yes, feel free to use it wherever you want.

Q: Where is the portable version?
A: When installing the tweaker, choose the Portable type of install, as shown on the image below.
The portable version will be extracted to the selected folder.

Selecting the portable installation type

Note: If the tweaker is already installed on your computer, the option won’t be visible. You can launch the setup with the /portable command line switch to force a portable installation.

Q: I want to report a bug/suggest a feature! What is the best way to do it?
A: Post it on the UserEcho page.

Q: I want to translate 7+ Taskbar Tweaker to my language.
A: The archive below contains the files needed to be translated.
Please read readme.txt before proceeding.

zip 7tt_translate.zip (758.63 kB)

If you are brave enough to translate the help file, contact me for the required software and files.

Posted in Releases, Software by Michael (Ramen Software) on September 30th, 2009.
Tags:

6,605 Responses to “7+ Taskbar Tweaker”

  1. Dallas says:

    Would it be possible for you to add a feature where you make the icon show/hide arrow work like it did in vista and below, and show the hidden icons on the taskbar, instead of showing them in a little window thingy? That would be nice, and it seems like it would be possible. 🙂

    • This was already suggested here.
      Vote for it if you’d like to see it implemented.

      I don’t think that I’m going to tackle it in the near future, as implementing this is not so trivial, but I might take a look one day, when I have extra spare time.

  2. jim bob says:

    Would really like to see an option to choose medium icon size (24px). At the moment you can only choose large (32px) and small (16px).

  3. I’m getting “this program is blocked by group policy. For more information contact your system administrator”.

  4. lue lusten says:

    looks like your using something Avast does not like or someone reported it, avast seem to never listen to my false possative so can you please clear this up with them i used your tool know its safe but 90% of the time if i white list it still blocks it

    thanks

    • Can you please provide more details about the detection? i.e. the version of the tweaker you’re using, the name of the false positive detection, the nature of the detection – file based or behavior based, a screenshot, and any other relevant information.
      I’ve checked the tweaker setup file on Virustotal, and it seems to be clean, at least for Avast.

      • Lue Lusten says:

        Sadly it wouldn’t tell me it showed me it was blocked twice but would not tell me what it found I used your new beta well I tried to download it but avast said no, it might also be the source it was downloading it from but it wont let me download it soon as its complete avast says nope says its a problem and then blocks it.

        • Could you provide a screenshot?
          Also, please contact Avast about it. I’m sure they can help you with this more than I can.

          • Lue Lusten says:

            I have contacted Avast two many times they don’t and have never listened or contacted me back about things like this and been a dev myself I even had to wait days for replies from them as a dev, there a good AV but there reply response is crap, but I will try and download it again over the weekend and try snap them shots for you.

  5. John says:

    Thanks for the Taskbar Tweaker program!

    I have Windows 8.1. I tried several times over the last couple of months to use the registry to stop the taskbar preview on mouse hover. Your program stopped it immediately.

  6. John Travolski says:

    Whenever I have Samsung Magician as the active window, I cannot use the scroll wheel to change the volume (just by hovering over the notification area without clicking) although I can with most other windows, like File Explorer, Adobe, Google Chrome, etc. I’m not sure what makes Magician different, but there are probably a few other applications that have this problem as well.

    Magician is the non-active window (http://prntscr.com/7d2enc)
    Magician is the active window (http://prntscr.com/7d2ezx)

    • Looks like this issue.

    • gggirlgeek says:

      Actually it would be awesome if the volume control were global and would work with applications in full-screen too. After all, 90% of the applications that need volume control are used in full-screen. It would also help us out when auto-hiding the taskbar. But I suspect 7 plus’s scope is too limited for that.

      I use Volumouse by Nirsoft for this, and it’s excellent, but it would be nice to have one less thing to manage.

      • gggirlgeek says:

        To explain, I’m suggesting that the volume would change when you hit the bottom corner of the screen with your mouse, globally.

  7. John Travolski says:

    I have a suggestion that would benefit me greatly. It would be nice if I could export my settings as some kind of text file so that, if I need to install 7+ on another computer, I can easily import it and get my settings back. I restart my computers all the time.

    • The settings are kept in the following registry branch:
      HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\7 Taskbar Tweaker

      You can use regedit to export the settings.

      • John Travolski says:

        I never realized that. Thank you! Also, what future developments are you planning for 7+ Taskbar Tweaker (apart from Windows 10 support)? Are there any new features that I can be looking forward to?

        • No, no concrete plans for 7+ Taskbar Tweaker. While it was started as a tiny tool, today it has many more features that I’ve planned for. I think that it addresses most of the shortcomings of the Windows taskbar, and even provides some customization capabilities beyond that.

  8. gggirlgeek says:

    I really love this program. It helps out with Explorer’s thumbnail caching problem (folders are busy when you try to modify them.) I have never seen taskbar thumbnails as useful anyway. It’s not like you can read the text inside and tell the difference between similar windows. I just need the info dammit! 🙂 7+ gives me that without changing my nice glass theme.

  9. JR says:

    In Win7 or 8 Tray icon, “Select which icons and notifications appear on the Taskbar”, you can elect to show a particular icon, say that of your security software. It will show for a time, but Windows will inevitably hide it.

    Is there any way to make selected icons ALWAYS show?

    Thanks

    • but Windows will inevitably hide it

      I’m not aware of this issue. On my computer, once I choose to show an icon, it’s being shown until I decide to hide it again.

      • JR says:

        All I can say is that this has been a consistent Windows 7 behavior ever since I started using Windows 7.

        I chose to hide most icons but I want to see my security software icon, so I can see if it is indicating it needs attention, but within a short time, Windows 7 will hide the security icon.

        http://tinyurl.com/ox6bd9v indicates where others have found the same behavior, and the effort expended to workaround this.

  10. mark says:

    Something that shits me to tears is the lackadaisical way that the taskbar captions appear. Do you know of any way to speed them up so that they appear immediately you mouse-over an icon instead of lazily popping up 1 second later?

    • mark says:

      Oh, yeah! Quick display tooltips! I love it but I like the menu list even more. Nice work.

      • wocala says:

        I am looking for the answer of this problem too! Could you please tell me what is quick display tooltips? in this tweaker or it’s another software? Thanks!

  11. Kuberg says:

    I found your tool really interesting, but the problem is that one of the most important functions doesnt exist:
    – i would like to have my taskbar buttons opening only at a max. size (just like it is possible with a firefox addon). Or in other words: much smaller.

    the reason: i open a lot of different programms/FF windows etc. – so it would be better if the button-size dont change with the opened numbers of buttons, but are smaller from beginning. So that the standard-place of my programs dont change all the time 😉

  12. Anon says:

    I really love your tool and it’s helped me make my desktop look better overall.
    But I have a very, very small complaint to make. When I disable Start Button and the Display Desktop button, the gap between the next icon (an open window and the notification tray) and the edge of the screen is uneven between the two. In short the gaps between the screen and the icons are uneven.
    I know this is very minor but is there a way that I could fix this myself or by chance an update?
    Eitherway this is an amazing tool and I’m thankfull someone has finally made this.

  13. Fantom says:

    Request:

    Extended options for clock
    Расширенные настройки для часов

  14. Simon Radford says:

    Thank you. Nice program that enabled me to do impossible things….

  15. Facundo says:

    Please implement an option that allows the user to make visible the ‘Show Desktop’ button in Windows 8.1 where it is invisible.

  16. Matthew says:

    I downloaded this tool because for some reason, my client’s desktop does not want to display a Thumbnail Preview when hovering over the Toolbar. I installed the Tool and noticed that the radio button (Show Thumbnail Preview [default]) was already selected, but still my issue persists. I can select the other options and can verify that they do switch how my Taskbar operates.

    My issue still stands that hovering over the Taskbar icon lists the windows open instead of a Thumbnail Preview.

    As a side notes, I did follow these steps
    http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52265-taskbar-thumbnail-previews-enable-disable.html
    Which did not work and why I came here.

    I appreciate the help with the Tool on the other hand.

    • When the "Show Thumbnail Preview [default]" option is checked, the tweaker doesn't affect anything, assuming that your system is configured to display thumbnails by default. You're saying that you're seeing a list instead of thumbnails. I assume that you're referring to <a href="http://www.sevenforums.com/attachments/tutorials/45406d1262551736-taskbar-thumbnail-previews-enable-disable-basic_theme.jpg&quot; rel="nofollow">this kind of list</a>.

      There are a couple of reasons I can think of as to why thumbnails don't appear on your computer, and they are listed in the link you provided: * Have you verified that you're running an Aero theme, and not a basic theme? * Have you checked the NumThumbnails value in the registry?

      • Matthew says:

        Hey thanks for the reply! I understand the default option takes whatever value Windows currently has set.

        The ‘Visual Effects’ is set for “Adjust for Best Performance” within the “Performance Options” settings.
        I am definitely running an Aero Theme.
        &
        There was not a value for the NumThumbnails in
        HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband
        So I created a DWORD value for 3.
        Instead of Thumbnails, I am getting Lists despite all signs pointing that I want Thumbnails enabled.

        • Then I can’t say what’s the reason, sorry. Perhaps you have some related group policy enabled.
          You might want to try asking on Super User or on one of the Windows customization forums, like the one you’ve linked.

          • Matthew says:

            Hi Michael,

            Thanks for the help though. This user’s machine is performing oddly (can’t even get IE to prompt the “Save Password” dialogue to Prompt for 1 website even though Chrome and other nearby workstations have no issue, but that’s besides the point and another issue in itself that I won’t go into ha).

            If I ever find a fix, I may come back and post here in case some future user has the same issue (though we may be off Win7 all together at that point)

  17. Bruce says:

    I’ve seriously customised Windows 7 to work more like XP and be more user-friendly. I’ve used a few tweaks and a few third-party programs to achieve this.

    One thing that I had not previously been able to “fix” was explorer windows grouped together and not being able to be moved apart. I was looking for a solution to this and I came across your program.

    I just changed one setting in 7+ Taskbar Tweaker and it’s done just exactly what I wanted to do.

    Thanks very much for a very useful little program.

  18. Jen says:

    OMG, thank you for this! Those little “preview” windows on the taskbar are so f%$@ing annoying!

  19. Kit says:

    I am using my old XP laptop as a backup while my main machine is in the shop. It works fine except that I have come to depend on the ability (thanks to 7+ Tweaker) to rearrange file order in the taskbar. I have done a quick search and can’t find a utility that lets me do that on XP (SP3). Anyone remember how to do this?

    Thanks.

  20. Kit says:

    Taskbar Shuffle does the trick! Thanks.

  21. Knorx Thieus says:

    Hello,

    I would love it to close several combinated windows by clicking them right one time!
    Do you understand what I mean (bad English)? I could send you a video about my suggestion! 🙂

    Best regards,
    Knorx Thieus

    • That’s already possible.
      Refer to the help file: Advanced options -> Mouse Button Control, and look for Close all group items.

      • Knorx Thieus says:

        I see, thank you very much! This was exactly what I was searching for.

        Another feedback: The 7+ Taskbar Tweaker window is not shown in the taskbar and cannot be called if the system tray icon is hidden (no button in the normal options window). It would be nice if you could add this.

        • The 7+ Taskbar Tweaker window is not shown in the taskbar

          You can pin it.

          and cannot be called if the system tray icon is hidden

          It can be launched from the start menu or from a desktop shortcut, if you have one. Like any other program, you can create a shortcut and place it wherever you find it convenient.

          • Knorx Thieus says:

            Sorry, I meant that the window of the advanced settings: It is neither shown in the taskbar nor I know how to access it directly without using the system tray icon.

            • That’s why they are called Advanced Options, but you can access them from here 🙂

              • Knorx Thieus says:

                Ah, well hidden! 😉

                I just tried to close a single window like usually (for me) via middle-clicking it, but because of the advanced option “taskbaritem|mclick” = 10, every window of its group automatically received a close prompt!
                How can I close single windows via middle-click but also close all windows of a combinated group if I middle-click it?

  22. Ph42oN says:

    Can you add feature to disable color hot-tracking? Taskbar buttons take color from icons when you hover mouse over them.

  23. Chukwudum Okeke says:

    Is it possible to implement mouse-wheel volume control on ALL Taskbars? I’m using a multi monitor setup.

    • The option Control volume when mouse is over: The taskbar should work for all taskbars. Is that the option that you’re referring to?
      Also, are you using third party taskbar tools such as UltraMon? 7+ Taskbar Tweaker doesn’t work with these.

      • eve says:

        I think a lot of people are only using this tool only for the scroll to change volume function. There is no user friendly alternative, maybe it would be a good idea to publish a program only with that function, would make the updating/breaking a lot easier too.

        Thanks a lot for making this tool, even though I only use one function, is is very essential for me.

  24. Chukwudum says:

    Ooooooh I see what I did wrong. I set it to notification area to avoid conflicts with cycling through taskbar buttons… my extended monitor doesn’t have a notification area, only a taskbar.

  25. Tim says:

    I had Taskbar Tweaker installed when I upgraded to Windows 10 – that seems to be a mistake. Even when uninstalling Taskbar tweaker, the Windows 10 taskbar is still replaced by the Taskbar Tweaker Menu.
    How can I get rid of Taskbar Tweaker and use the Windows 10 menu again?

  26. Kristeen Kohrs says:

    LOVE your tool – My main use was to reorder my Outlook items when Windows mixes them up. This doesn’t seem to work anymore with Windows 10. Any ideas?

  27. Andrew Wilczak says:

    Am I the only one with the “7+ taskbar tweaker could not load library (107)” problem? It was fixed after Update 1 for Windows 8.1 came out, but now it happens again.

    I tried the newest stable and beta versions, with no luck. I’m using Windows 8.1 Pro. Maybe another update came out?

  28. Andrew Wilczak says:

    The KB3072318 update was at fault. I’ve just uninstalled it and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker works perfectly again. The update also distorts icons in jump lists (details here), so it should be avoided anyway.

  29. Sebastian says:

    Any idea when the Windows 10 update might be ready?

  30. Dr Chris E says:

    I would like to say just how valuable this tool has been for me under Win7. I work in an NetAdmin role and under XP I always opened my management apps in a specific order. Over the years I got very fast in maneuvering between the different admin tools in the different windows based on the fact that they were always in the same spot in the taskbar. Win7, with its forced grouping, wreaked havoc. After installing your tool, I was able to get back to my normal routine. It seems like such a small thing, but during the course of the day it ends up saving me a lot of time.

    So thank you…this is a great tool and I imagine I will continue to use it for the foreseeable future (especially since our company takes so long to migrate desktop images and my guess is Win10 is years and years away).

  31. David Trapnell says:

    I recently installed Trend Internet Security v10 on my Windows 10 computer. It appears to have found and removed 2 viruses from 3 files related to 7+tt, one in the exe’s and the other in the link. At the moment I have no way to determine if this is a false alarm, if the files became infected while on my computer, or if they arrived infected. Below is a text export of the log:

    Date/Time,Threat,Source,Affected Files,Response,Detected By,From,To,Subject,Protocol
    8/4/2015 12:05 PM,HEU_AEGISCS230,Threat,C:\Users\dt\AppData\Roaming\7+ Taskbar Tweaker\7+ Taskbar Tweaker.exe,Removed,Real Time Scan,
    8/4/2015 12:05 PM,HEU_AEGISCS230,Threat,C:\Users\dt-admin\AppData\Roaming\7+ Taskbar Tweaker\7+ Taskbar Tweaker.exe,Removed,Real Time Scan,
    8/4/2015 12:05 PM,TSC_GENCLEAN,Threat,C:\Users\dt-admin\Desktop\7+ Taskbar Tweaker.lnk,Removed,Real Time Scan

    • It might be a false positive. Even though three of the latest alpha versions (.10, .11, .12) are clean on VirusTotal, your AV could use a behavior-based detection. Because the alpha versions are not that popular, and because the tweaker modifies the system, the AV could come to the (incorrect) conclusion that the tweaker is malicious.

      It would be best if you could contact Trend Micro with the relevant details. Thanks!

  32. marni says:

    All very nice, but there’s only one taskbar feature i really really want:
    A weld-the-f***ing taskbar shut option. About a million times a day my cursor overshoots and triggers Microsh*ts stupidly non-defeat-able/non-pause-able pop up feature. Sure there are utilities like Taskbar Eliminator and -Hider but other apps seem to overrule them, so, just when you need them, the fixes fail.

  33. marin says:

    Hi,

    on volume change via mouse wheel it show old volume control dialog, can you please make change that volume change is showen via modern volume control dialog?

    btw. Thanks for this super tweaker

  34. Costa K says:

    This program worked for me. I tried a few other suggestions of modifying the registry but they didn’t work.

    What I also like is that this program allows you to remove the huge gap between taskbar icons. Now I can fit more on there and keep the search box as well.

    Thanks for the program.

  35. Bilbo Baggins says:

    This software is terrific! Has features I needed, and features I never knew I needed 🙂

  36. Igor says:

    Thank you, RaMMicHael, GREAT!
    AVAST found no viruses.
    But for Windows7x64 it installed only by “Administrator”. I have tried many times until guessed. And оtherwise it writes (approximately (I installed the Russian version)): “You you have any 64-bit version of the operating system. Use the 64-bit version of the program.”. Maybe you do specify about it in the in your instructions?

  37. Igor says:

    Спасибо, RaMMicHaeL! Отличная программа!

    АВАСТ, кстати, не нашел в ней никаких вирусов.
    Вот только на W7x64 устанавливается лишь от имени админа. Я пробовал много раз, пока не догадался… Иначе пишет “У вас 64-битная версия операционной системы. Используйте 64-битную версию программы”.

    • Странно. Это говорит о том, что установщик решил, что у Вас 32-битная система, пока Вы не запустили его от имени администратора. Код детектора здесь.

      Может быть, установщик запускался с настройками совместимости?

  38. MOHCTP says:

    Спасибо, RaMMicHaeL, практически незаменимая программа!

    4.5.10.(8, 9, 10) при запуске на вин7х64 “ошибка не удается загрузить библиотеки (109)” 4.5.10.6 – без вопросов.

    • Спасибо за отзыв!

      Ошибку воспроизвести не получилось. Можете сказать какая у Вас версия файла explorer.exe? И проверить, работает ли версия v4.5.10.11.

  39. Marc says:

    I have a feature request and it looks like 7tt is the perfect place for it.
    When explorer crashes or it’s restarted, the sort order is different. Rearrange all programs like before the crash.

  40. dAKirby309 says:

    Hey, is there any way to make the taskbar transparent once disabling transparency for Action Center, Start, etc. in Personalization?

  41. Scott says:

    I get this error from Sophos Endpoint Security and Control, version 10.3

    Last checked for updates 20/08/2015 10:31:33

    High Risk Website Blocked

    Location: rammichael.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2015/04/7tt_setup.exe
    Access has been blocked as the threat Mal/HTMLGen-A has been found on this website.
    Return to the page you were previously viewing.

  42. felipescado says:

    waiting for the win10 version, me and my sister use 7tt on our computers and updated to win10, and this program is a MUST

  43. GABRIELM says:

    Hi, is it possible to adjust the widht of the windows that displays the jump list, I have files with long names and I would like to see the entire file name when the jumplist appears

    do you any way to do it via registry?

  44. Alex says:

    I just updated 7tt manually to the latest beta version v4.5.10.12 because a windows update from this week seemed to conflict with it. namely the start button was no longer responsive and the rest of the taskbar as well plus some dialog popped up about some library of 7tt having problems.

    good job – the update solved that all as far as i can see.

  45. Alex says:

    I installed OK on Win10, but 7+TT didn’t start after a restart. I had to start it manually.
    I checked the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Run setting and it looked OK, then I noticed the key had no “+” sign after the “7”. I inserted one and now it starts OK

    Alex

  46. Alex says:

    I had installed the latest version (5.0) from scratch, so no updating.

    I dual boot with Win7, on which I’ve updated 7+TT to V5.0, and which works OK, so out of interest I looked at the reg key and found the same thing. I added the “+” to the key name again.
    Big mistake, now it wouldn’t start on reboot, when previously it was ok. Even changing back didn’t work, so I loaded an up to date image I had and restored things as they were.
    I think the key name is irrelevant, the run command should still operate if the key is there, so I am at a loss to understand what is happening.
    This is obviously a windows issue.

    Alex

    • I think the key name is irrelevant

      Oh, so it’s about the key. I thought the value (data) is incorrect. Yes, the key shouldn’t matter, and the + is left out from the key name intentionally. It was done to keep compatibility with old tweaker versions, as the tweaker was previously called “7 Taskbar Tweaker”, without the “+”.

      I don’t know what’s the issue here, but you might want to see this topic and read the comments.

  47. lilfire says:

    Is i possible to name a group?

  48. Joao says:

    Hi

    For example, when i have 3 programs in a group or combined.
    I wanna to show the title for only that group and set the name for that.. for example

    [3 Pictures from school].. is a group of 3 photoshop.

    The title is temporary, only for that group and when i close the 3 photoshop and i open a new photoshop, will be called with the original title.

    ty

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