7+ Taskbar Tweaker is 15 years old today!

Exactly 15 years ago, 7 Taskbar Tweaker v1.0 was released (changelog).

This continues the celebration tradition after the five years celebration and the ten years celebration. This time, it’s likely the last celebration as 7+ Taskbar Tweaker is doomed to become irrelevant soon. If you didn’t follow the recent blog posts, the short version is that Windows 11 comes with a new taskbar implementation, making 7+ Taskbar Tweaker incompatible and requiring a reimplementation of many of its options. After this realization, Windhawk, the customization marketplace for Windows and programs, was released to become the successor of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker. Many 7+ Taskbar Tweaker options were already ported to Windhawk mods, and it’s an ongoing effort to port more options and fill the gaps.

Below is a short timeline of the most notable milestones of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker during its lifetime.

Happy birthday! You served well!



    
        2009September 30
        7 Taskbar Tweaker v1.0 is released, 22 days before Windows 7 general availability.
    
    
        2012August 12
        7 Taskbar Tweaker v4.0 is released with Windows 8 support. Renamed to 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.
    
    
        2015August 22
        7+ Taskbar Tweaker v5.0 is released with Windows 10 support.
    
    
        2021July 3
        After a first look at Windows 11, it becomes clear that it comes with a new taskbar implementation, and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker can't be just updated as it was done for previous Windows versions.
    
    
        2021October 22
        7+ Taskbar Tweaker v5.12 is released with Windows 11 support, as long as the old taskbar is restored, which is still possible via registry or a third-party tool.
    
    
        2022March 7
        Windhawk is released to become the successor of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.
    
    
        2023November 30
        The first Windows 11 build that signals the removal of the old taskbar is released.
    
    
        2025October 14
        Windows 10 is planned to reach end of support, putting an end to the long journey of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.

Posted in Software, Updates by Michael (Ramen Software) on September 30th, 2024.
Tags: 7+ taskbar tweaker, history

13 Responses to “7+ Taskbar Tweaker is 15 years old today!”

VEG says:

October 8, 2024 at 11:25 am VEG(Quote)

There will be ESU updates for Windows 10 for at least 3 more years after 2025.

Reply
- Michael (Ramen Software) says:
  
  October 8, 2024 at 7:37 pm Michael (Ramen Software)(Quote)
  
  And the enterprise version (IoT Enterprise) will reach end of support on January 2032. Still, I believe users will be encouraged by Microsoft to update to Windows 11 by October 2025, and most probably will.
  
  Reply
raveren says:

October 14, 2024 at 7:52 am raveren(Quote)

huge thanks for all these years of hard work <3

Reply
George says:

November 8, 2024 at 10:06 pm George(Quote)

Many thanks for your continued work and Happy belated Birthday!

Just discovered 7+TT and loving it. A bit sad to read about its impending doom.

Will still keep using W10 (couldn’t upgrade even if I wanted to anyway) until it is safe to do so.

I think (and hope) it won’t be that simple for Microsoft to take down W10 and it will require many more years than originally planned.

Reply
Quinn says:

February 17, 2025 at 7:16 pm Quinn(Quote)

Can you, please, tell us if you intend to update 7+TT for the next three years due to ESU for Win 10?

Reply
- Michael (Ramen Software) says:
  
  February 17, 2025 at 7:18 pm Michael (Ramen Software)(Quote)
  
  Yes, I intend on making compatibility updates as needed.
  
  Reply
El says:

February 22, 2025 at 1:51 am El(Quote)

Found myself here after I could not longer stand the taskbar playing musical chairs with every virtual desktop switch. All this farewell talk is making me sad. It’s such a great tool!

I’m getting anxious about Microsoft changing everything up on us.

BTW, for old time’s sake, you wouldn’t happen to have a fix up your for sleeve for the virtual_desktop_order_fix feature in Win10, would you? It broke a few months ago. Organizing’s been rough ever since.

Reply
- Michael (Ramen Software) says:
  
  February 22, 2025 at 10:36 am Michael (Ramen Software)(Quote)
  
  Does it need a fix? It worked last time I checked. What’s your version of explorer.exe? Open the C:\Windows folder, locate explorer.exe, right click → Properties → Details → File version.
  
  And BTW for Windows 11 there’s the Virtual Desktop Preserve Taskbar Order mod.
  
  Reply
  - El says:
    
    February 23, 2025 at 11:35 pm El(Quote)
    
    Thanks for the quick reply. You surprised me 😀
    
    Explorer:
    Ver: 10.0.19041.5487
    
    7+ Taskbar Tweaker:
    Ver: 5.15.2
    
    btw, I just now, as in 10 mins ago, noticed you have a beta version. Although there seem to be quite a bit more detections in virustotal:
    
    Beta: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/7bd19b90f4112e4fcc95083e19681d942dc6fad0e10a65b20073d2c2bd5d7c4d
    
    Non-Beta: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/1d144d8d909acdc149adeefd0434914dbc0c385aa45b70798927e1e564a2fcb3
    
    Reply
    - Michael (Ramen Software) says:
      
      February 24, 2025 at 11:15 am Michael (Ramen Software)(Quote)
      
      Explorer:
      Ver: 10.0.19041.5487
      
      Looks like the offsets didn’t change in this version. When you say that it broke, do you mean that it doesn’t work at all? Or in some cases?
      
      Can you do a simple test just like in the video here, and see if the Notepad/Explorer order is preserved? Make sure both aren’t pinned.
      https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker-v5-2-with-support-for-windows-10-anniversary-update
      
      Although there seem to be quite a bit more detections in virustotal:
      
      These are false positive detections.
      
      Unfortunately, struggling with false positives is a non-ending hassle.
      
      This problem was discussed many times in the blog comments, for example:
      https://rammichael.com/7-taskbar-tweaker/comment-page-43#comment-11035
      https://rammichael.com/contact/comment-page-4#comment-10292
      
      See also Nir Sofer’s blog post, Antivirus companies cause a big headache to small developers, a good write-up about the problem.
      
      You can always help by reporting the detections as false positives to the relevant antivirus companies.
      
      Reply
El says:

February 26, 2025 at 1:09 am El(Quote)

I just realized the sorting problem only happens if I drag a program in front of a pinned item. Whether or not the pinned item is running.

Reply
- Michael (Ramen Software) says:
  
  February 26, 2025 at 11:41 am Michael (Ramen Software)(Quote)
  
  It’s a known limitation, you can find the explanation here:
  https://github.com/ramensoftware/windhawk-mods/issues/458
  
  Reply
  - El says:
    
    February 27, 2025 at 3:51 am El(Quote)
    
    Thanks, seems like it would be annoying to implement.
    
    Reply