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, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.
Download (portable installation available)
7tt_setup.exe (1.58 MB, changelog)
Latest version: v5.8
Beta version
7tt_setup_beta.exe (1.58 MB, changelog)
Latest beta version: v5.8.0.3
More info about beta versions.
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: Can 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.
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.
7tt_translate.zip (758.62 kB)
If you are brave enough to translate the help file, contact me for the required software and files.
Windows 10 pro evaluation build 19013 version 7+ Taskbar Tweakerv5.8.0
Software does not work with this version
7+ Taskbar Tweaker v5.8.0.3 beta has experimental support for Windows 10 build 19013. Insider builds are not supported by the non-beta 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.
Windows 10 pro evaluation build 19013 version Software does not work with this version
+1 – I can install (after bypassing Windows Defender). The initial settings screen for 7TT appears for a second before the application is killed.
Is the tweaker killed by Defender? You can try adding it to Defender’s exclusion list.
After latest Windows update (I think), get this error message:
7+ Taskbar Tweaker: Could not load library (5)
Library initialization failed, perhaps your Windows version is not supported
Windows 10 Enterprise (x64)
Version 10.0.16299 Build 16299
Any ideas, please?
Mark
Forgot to say, running in Portable mode.
The issue is fixed in the beta version. See my reply here for more details.
Confirmed, resolves problem! Thanks.
Many thanks for your prompt reply, much appreciated!
Hi,
It looks like the latest version contains a virus (ALEXA51 as revealed by AVAST during installation). Windows10 won’t download the executable either…
Any comments would be appreciated since I have also paid a license for business use.
Thanks,
Regards,
Beppe
Hi Beppe,
I don’t see it being detected by Avast on VirusTotal. See also my reply here.
As for a license, 7+ Taskbar Tweaker doesn’t require, nor it has the option for a license for business use. It’s a freeware/donationware program which can be used for free, with an option to donate to contribute to the development.
Hi,
I reinstalled once again the beta version despite virus alert from Avast. I trust you. 🙂 Anyhow I didn’t get such alert at work.
Thanks for your quick reply. Appreciated.
Beppe
v5.8.0 no longer works with Windows 10 for me on my work laptop, and I’m trying to install the beta version with no luck. Our virus scanner deletes the exe with a message that it detected a Trojan named Artemis!C4388D60B40D. Artemis is the name McAfee Labs gives to unknown, possible risks. There is no way to turn off the scanner. 🙁
Unfortunately there’s not much I can do about McAfee. I tried to contact them about it but got no reply. As their customer, please contact their support team and ask them to remove the false positive detection.
Great tool! Anything on the Notifications widget?
I recently was asked by my boss to stop the “Windows notifications” on our conference room PC. I realized it’s easy to do for 1 user but seemingly impossible for all users. I was hoping 7+ Taskbar Tweaker would have an option to just hide the entire feature. Any chance you can pop that into the code by say Friday? Thanks!
By Friday? Looks like I’m already late 🙂
If Windows provides an option for this, I believe you can find a way to push it to all users, depending on the way you manage them. If you’re able to configure 7+ Taskbar Tweaker for all users, it sounds like you are in total control over the users’ profiles and files.
I did find a local Group Policy:
(User configuration\Administrative Templates\Start Menu and Taskbar\Remove Notifications and Action Center)
…that fully suppresses the notifications section entirely.
Thanks,
K.C.
Hi,
I have Windows 10 Pro version 18362.418 and after it got updated to this version around 2 weeks ago the Taskbar stopped working with the error:
7+ Taskbar Tweaker: Could not load library (102)
The library version doesn’t match. Try to reinstall the tweaker
The tweaker opens and my settings are there but it doesn’t have any effect on the windows taskbar. I tried installing both my old version and the most recent beta version and the installer has an error that reads:
Error opening file for writing:
D:Program Files/7+ Taskbar Tweaker/inject.dll
Click Abort to stop the installation, Retry to try again or Ignore to skip this file
I did try re-installing in Administrator mode but the same error appears.
Hi,
Please see my reply here.
Thanks. That fixed it.
Hi, I have recently updated my Windows 10 (as it won’t allow me never to update, which is incredibly frustrating) and upon the update, my 7+ taskbar tweaker is no longer working to make the changes I have selected in it. I mainly use this so I am able to drag grouped taskbars within each other as I often have to rearrange the order my Word documents appear to me in. It looks like the settings are there, but they aren’t working. I click Taskbar inspector, and it says “Not injected into explorer”. I have looked it up under reg edit and I’m not sure if there is any data in there that I need to change in order to get the taskbar to work again. If you can help me with this that would be great as it is beginning to frustrate me that I cannot find any information about how to reenable this or about how to get it to work again.
Hi Deandra,
First, you probably get an error message when 7+ Taskbar Tweaker launches. What does the message say?
Second, it’s possible that you’re not using the latest version of the tweaker. Please check that. If you didn’t disable automatic updates, you can just right click on the tweaker’s tray icon and choose “Update”.
I think I got a message about it once at startup, but I didn’t read through it clearly. It’s okay though, I did need to update and it’s working again! Thanks so much for the speedy response! I’m glad there was an easy fix and this program gets updated regularly! I’ll set it to automatically update now 🙂
The error message I am getting after the windows update is:
7+ Taskbar Tweaker: Could not load library (5)
Library initialization failed, perhaps your Windows version is not supported.
I use a corporate laptop and security is pretty strict on it. They use Avecto which has stripped me from doing pretty much any registry editing and software and update install/uninstall. Thankfully this programme is a desktop install so I don’t face issues with install but this error message is making any changes to the taskbar settings redundant and enforces MS settings
The issue is fixed in the beta version. See my reply here for more details.
Thansk RaMMicHael,
Hi,
I also encounter the issue with “Could not load library (5)”
I’m using Windows 10 Enterprise version 1709 (OS build 16299.1508)
I tried download the Beta version as other users reported it solved the problem but McAfee deletes it immediately (there is no problem with the non-Beta version)
I can send McAfee details in a screenshot if there is a way to attach image.
Thanks,
Elad
Hi Elad,
Please see my reply here.
Works it with 1909 or works it not? When make you the automatic sort of groued items in alphabetical order? Always doing this sorting manually is a littel bit boring.
Works.
Maybe one day, but you can set up a mouse shortcut for it in the advanced options.
Hi,
Can something be done about the Mcafee it is not allowing to download and I am having issues with my taskbar, all my webpages gets grouped etc.
Please help.
Regards,
Naveen
I’ve selected the option “Remove extra gap between items”.
It does work with icons pinned to the taskbar.
When executing a pinned or not pinned program, the gap is there again.
Look at the picture (zoom in if you can’t see)
https://www1.xup.in/tn/2019_11/11479583.jpeg
Is it possible to remove the gap while the executed state?
Unfortunately, that’s not possible at this time. Currently, the tweaker is only able to reduce the gap between pinned, non-executing items.
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/6468ca3866eebea33e97b7951af5c310fb521c7edbb98dbc1a3f3eb81f6e399a/detection
The detections are false positive. Feel free to report to the support team of the AV vendors.
Could you please shed some light on what might trigger false positives? Do you think a win10 only version could clean up some of the code that gets wrongly detected?
Your tool is indispensable and I thank you so much for it, but I’d pay good money if the binary was hosted on github or some other nobrainer secure place. It’s not enough to trust a single dev (i really do), your site is surrounded by too many hostile actors and I’ve never been comfortable downloading binaries from here (I’m the one who harassed you to implement TLS :P)
Several factors.
One thing that the tweaker injects code into the explorer process. Process injection is commonly used by malware, so this can be a red flag for an antivirus.
Another thing is popularity. Beta versions always have more false positives. Now it’s ten versus three. I’d assume that more users cause the program to be logged more often in the antiviruses’ logs, and so that causes them to check it and remove the false positive. Probably people also report more about it. More sites link to it, too (like Softpedia and similar), so that might affect detections too.
One other thing that might affect detections is a digital signature. The tweaker is not signed – I don’t bother to pay for a digital signature for this free project. It might have, or might have not, reduced the rate of false positives.
See also Nir Sofer’s blog post, Antivirus companies cause a big headache to small developers, a good write-up about the problem.
I’m not sure how it’s better or more secure. My website can be hacked (never happened so far), but so can be my GitHub account, or any other account.
If you’re interested in sponsoring a digital signature ($70 a year), I can add one, but as I said I’m not sure it’s going to help. I would surely help if I could sign my tool with e.g. a Microsoft signature, but obviously I can’t 🙂
What do you mean by that?
Suggestion for “Left click on combined item” option:
“Open first window, otherwise open thumbnail preview”.
For instance if you have two chrome windows open, the first left click would always select the one first in the order (farthest to the left). This would work very well for me in conjunction with the “drag to reorder” thumbnails option, lets me choose which one i want to get to in one click.
Thanks! I love this tool!
Running v5.8. I cannot access the advanced options menus. When I right click, nothing happens. I want to increase the size of the taskbar icons. Please help.
I’m not familiar with such an issue – I never experienced it, and I don’t remember other users reporting something like this. In any case, the advanced options are accessible from the main window as well by right clicking on the title bar (screenshot).
Working now, was right clicking elsewhere (long time periods before adjusting with program), THANK YOU!
Hi,
I’ve been using TT for years, first with Win 7 x64, then with Win 10 x64. After the latest Win upgrade (Version is now 10.0.18363) I keep getting an error (warning) message I never got before and TT is not working anymore.
Hi,
Please disregrad my last message. I downloaded now the last version again (it’s different from the one I dwnld last month because it has a different size) and it seems to be working. If the warning message pops up again at startup, I’ll post a message.
Regards,
Mike
My man, I got to tell you, all your software are amazing, I’ve been using them for a long time and they always works great. You got some great utilities here, I sincerely thank you.
Hey,
I installed the 7+ TT on my work laptop, and yesterday Windows 10 updates were forced upon me. The updates were KB4523202 and KB4525241 Since yesterday, my TT gives me an error “7+ Taskbar Tweaker: Could not load library (5). Library initialization failed, perhaps your Windows version is not supported.”
I’ve tried uninstalling and re-installing TT version 5.8, but the error persists. Please can you help?
Thanks and kind regards,
Ryan
Hi Ryan,
The issue is fixed in the beta version. See my reply here for more details.
Hi,
This is absolutely best tool for Win10. Do you think you can maybe add possibility to show date in Taskbar? I’m missing is as I’m using “small buttons” and don’t see date. Thx.
Hi Martin,
It’s not planned. Maybe one day. For now, you might want to try some of the apps which are designed for date/time customization on the taskbar, such as T-Clock (haven’t tried it myself).
I have a very wide monitor, about 1 meter width. And is it anyway to align the taskbar contents to center? Just as Mac’s dock. Please consider about this featrue.
The tweaker doesn’t provide such an option. For now, you can upvote the suggestion on UserEcho. I might look at it one day in the future.
Thanks, voted.
For this function, give a look into FalconX software. I’ve just recently found out this application and it’s pretty neat. But, yeah, I couldn’t agree more, it would be very handy if 7+Taskbar Tweaker implemented this function one day.
Hi,
I use (very, very often) the feature “Middle click on empty space > Show desktop”.
I just noticed that when the Start menu is open, this middle click doesn’t work.
By any chance, would you be able to fix this?
I’m on Windows 10 version 1909.
Regards
Hi,
I see that it works the way you describe in Windows 10, but not in Windows 7. I’ll look into changing in for Windows 10 in one of the future versions.
我的另一台电脑无法支持7+，这使得我非常头疼
但是我很喜欢win10_large_icon这个功能
请问我有别的方法达到这个目的吗
Sorry, I don’t speak Chinese.
Why not? Are you getting an error message?
There’s a paid program which provides a similar option. See the second answer here.