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
7tt_setup.exe (1.78 MB, changelog)
Latest version: v5.15.2
Note: The installer can be used to extract a portable version. Refer to the FAQ below for details.
Beta version
7tt_setup_beta.exe (1.78 MB, changelog)
Latest beta version: v5.15.2.2
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 version 23H2 and older 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.
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 (758.63 kB)
If you are brave enough to translate the help file, contact me for the required software and files.
Tags: 7+ taskbar tweaker
Hi,
thank you for a great program!
One thing that still bothers me with W7 taskbar is dragging the buttons to rearrange them. It is extremely useful, but there is a pitfall.
When I actually want to drag a taskbar button, I make sure that it was visually indicated where it will move. You need to drag a button quite a long way, to get the indication and for the button to actually move. This is all great.
The bad thing is, that dragging mode is initiated as soon as you click-pull the button a very small distance (only a couple of pixels). This interferes with my normal clicking the buttons. Often, I swing the cursor far across the screen to click a taskbar button, and in time between click/release, dragging is initiated instead of click. This is because with fast motions, those few pixels are easily traversed between the mouse button click/release.
This dragging of course does not occur, since I didn’t drag nowhere near enough to actually reposition a button, but neither does a click occur.
When I want to actually drag a button, I do it properly (drag and verify the visual indication of new button position). Is there a way for click to always count as a click, if the ‘drag’ operation didn’t actually reposition the button somewhere else? Or, alternatively, is there a way to increase the pixel distance at which the action is interpreted as dragging instead of click?
Thanks.
A click should occur. It does for me.
That’s how it currently works.
Look, e.g., at this picture:
If i point the cursor on the green, press the right mouse button, move it to the red, and release it, a menu appears as expected.
Hmmm, it doesn’t seem to work for me. I did try like you illustrated. I clicked some other window, so that Firefox window was behind others. Then, I did exactly as your image shows. The Firefox window did not come to front. Meaning the button wasn’t clicked. If I click on the green dot and release there, the Firefox window does come to front. That’s what I would like to happen in both cases.
I don’t understand what menu you are talking about, though. We are discussing plain left mouse button click, right?
No he is talking about the RIGHT mouse button.
Maybe, but I am talking about the left mouse button since the original comment. Of course the right mouse button clicks, as dragging is not triggered at all with right mouse button. It’s the left mouse button that doesn’t click if dragging is triggered.
Somehow I was sure you’re talking about the “Drag within/between groups using right mouse button” feature of the tweaker, which allows you to drag items using the right mouse button.
The left mouse button drag uses default windows drag parameters. I think you can tweak it’s sensitivity using the following values:
DragHeight, DragWidth
in:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
As described here:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/fixing-annoyances-stop-windows-from-copying-files-accidentally-when-ctrl-click-selecting/
It worked!
Thank you very much! 😀
nice post thank you for sharing,
i am very happy to knowing hide Running Programs from taskbar it’s works & nice user inter face thank you tricks4me.com
Hi RaMMicHaeL,
When waiting for a new release, How can we know what topic you are working on, and what is coming soon?
You can’t 🙂
Actually, I’m not working on anything 7tt-related. Except for a pending Serbian translation I need to integrate, there’s nothing planned.
In general I consider the tweaker to be mostly feature complete. I think it currently has a good balance of the amount of options – It provides you with great customization, and still doesn’t flood you with dozens of checkboxes (like e.g. the Classic Shell settings: http://goo.gl/wuTpw).
I really do not agree with you.
There are many other things to do.. Look at the old userecho page…
Too bad you let friends post on userecho page.
For Classic Shell:
Classic Shell is a powerful tool, and I like the “dozens of checkboxes” letting you Maximum customized.
You’re right, there are many boxes, which is a bit confusing, but in the end, We all benefit, the user gets what he needs. (Try to think of Firefox without add-ons, and without the ability to customize …).
More should be said, if you’ll notice, Classic Shell developer solved the problem by creating 2 settings: Basic settings and All/advanced settings.
OK, so maybe 7TT won’t be like a Windows Manager app (would give us controlling each window transparency, autoMaximize etc.),
But 7TT Still have to solve Taskbar problems like: Density of multiple tasks in taskbar (paging Taskbar), Mouse hovering over the taskbar, and more.
It is important to know how much motivation you have to continue to develop this application.
There’s one other weird thing about Windows 7 taskbar buttons.
It’s about window focus.
To replicate, open one instance of Terminal (cmd.exe) and one instance of Notepad. Minimize them both (and all other applications, if any).
Case 1 (correct):
Click the taskbar button for Terminal. The taskbar button is depressed and the window displays over the desktop. The window also receives focus.
Click the taskbar button for Terminal. The taskbar button raises, and the window minimizes.
It works the same for Notepad.
Case 2 (correct):
Click both taskbar buttons so that both Terminal and Notepad are visible over desktop.
Click on the Notepad window so that it has focus.
Click Notepad taskbar button. The taskbar button raises, and the window minimizes. At the same time, focus is shifted to Terminal window. Its taskbar button depresses and it receives focus.
Case 3 (incorrect ???):
Click both taskbar buttons so that both windows are visible over desktop.
Click on the Terminal window so that it has focus.
Click Terminal taskbar button. The window hides, but the taskbar button does not raise. It stays depressed. Also, Notepad window does not receive focus.
Note that is you click “minimize” button on Terminal, it does work as expected (Notepad does receive focus then).
I use this all the time, for example to just quickly check something on another window, by simply clicking its taskbar button twice. Of course I expect the focus to shift back to previous window – but it doesn’t in some cases. Nothing having focus is completely useless for me, and annoying as you need to pay attention all the time and manually click other taskbar buttons to return the focus.
Also note that as far as I know, this works as expected on Windows XP. Windows 7 changed something?
I also cannot figure out why it works this way only for certain windows (like Terminal).
I would personally wish for taskbar button to always work like minimizing the window, so another unminimized window always gets focus.
Would you by any chance know of any Windows 7 tweaks for this matter?
If not, do you deem possible for Taskbar Tweaker to have a workaround option for this, for example it could send actual minimize message to the window?
I could reproduce it on Windows 7, but not on Windows 8. Also, it seems like only Terminal is problematic, Notepad behaves correctly. So my guess is it’s an issue with Windows 7’s Terminal/taskbar, which is fixed in Windows 8.
I also experience it with Sametime chat windows, which isn’t MS software. I’m suspecting a specific combination of window attributes or something similar.
@RaMMicHaeL, this great util makes things usable again for me. I have a bug to report though, and I’m not sure where it comes from but I’ll describe my setup and the symptoms.
I’m running Win8x64 with two displays. My tweaker config screencap is here: http://i.imgur.com/wtmmabg.png
What happens is that the icons associated with open/running programs on the taskbar get mixed up. This happens very frequently and without me manually rearranging the position of the tasks. Sometimes I run shell extension updates that restart Explorer, but I don’t think this is the source of the issue because it happens regardless.
When I close and restart 7+ Tweaker, the icon issue goes away for a while. I would appreciate if you can look into this.
thanks!
-leon
I forgot to mention that I do drag windows between the two displays, so maybe Tweaker loses track of the icon order when the window moves over to the other screen’s taskbar?
What do you mean by “get mixed up”? Do the icons mix up only within groups, or between them too?
What are your “multiple displays” settings on taskbar properties?
Note that icons always mix up when explorer restarts, it has nothing to do with the tweaker.
Having used this for the last couple of years on several of my machines – I LOVE this program.
Because I am lazy, can you provide any instructions to perform an export / import of settings from another machine to another – I couldn’t find any form of storage file within APPDATA would the settings be stored in the registry?
The idea of syncing via cloud such as specifying a config file that can be changed and saved to dropbox. Although I realise this is free software and you have done an amazing job so far with the scope of this thing.
In general, the settings reside in the registry, in the following branch:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\7 Taskbar Tweaker
Syncing through Dropbox sounds like a nice idea, but I think it’s an overkill for this small tool 🙂
Here are my taskbar settings http://i.imgur.com/5NWtaMv.png
I have all grouping and combining disabled. By mixed up I mean the Notepad++ icon becomes Chrome’s icon while the NP++ icon becomes an explorer window icon, or Thunderbird’s icon displays an additional time instead of the correct open explorer window icon.
When does they mix up? When you do something, or just at random times?
Any way to easily reproduce it?
With your configuration, taskbar buttons also mix up when you move the windows from one monitor to another.
e.g. if you have:
monitor 1 | monitor 2[ffox] [npad] | [explorer]
and you move Firefox to the 2-nd monitor:
monitor 1 | monitor 2[npad] | [explorer] [ffox]
and then back to the first:
monitor 1 | monitor 2[npad] [ffox] | [explorer]
It ends up being the second button, while it was the first.
I understand this. I am not referring to the actual programs changing order, this is expected. I’m talking about their actual icons getting screwed up – it will say “Firefox” and be Firefox but will have Explorer’s icon. And Explorer in some cases will have ff’s icon, or sometimes both will have Explorer’s icon. It’s very odd, but once i exit 7+tt, the icons get restored to the correct ones and if I start 7+tt again, then the issue goes away (for a while).
I cannot reproduce it right now, but it happens quite often. I will try to narrow down what situations cause this to occur, but usually I have a lot of stuff open and don’t notice exactly at what point it happens.
In fact, I’ve encountered this issue, but it happens so rarely (happened to me once or twice, literally) that it doesn’t really bother me.
I can’t do much with it as I can’t reproduce it.
Also, I’m not sure it’s the tweaker’s fault. If it happens often for you, you can experiment and see whether it happens without the tweaker running, or with it running with all options off.
When you start/exit the tweaker, or change specific options, the tweaker forces a kind of “taskbar rebuild”:
It removes all the taskbar buttons, and then puts them back with the same order, with redrawing off. It does that to apply settings like grouping or combining.
So it’s not that odd. You can as well, e.g., toggle some grouping option, and the icons will probably get fixed.
Sorry, i meant that it’s odd that they get screwed up. Not that a tweaker restart fixes them. heh. I’ll let you know if I can reproduce it reliably. thanks.
Thank you some much!!! I was searching for this for such a long time.
Never ever again those annoying, useless thumbnail previews or tooltips in my taskbar.
Taskbar Tweaker 7 is the most useful utility on my computer. I can’t believe what it does and how well it works. Thank you. Thank you!!!
Hi,
I found a temporary solution for those looking for letting us to combine groups according to choice.
Use “Minimize to Tray” in HotkeyP.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/hotkeyp/
“It hides all windows of an active application and creates a small icon in the system tray. If you click the tray icon, the application will be restored and the icon will disappear.”
First of all thanks again for this awesome utility. I’ve got a suggestion: allow us to choose whether the Aero Peek preview thumbnails should have labels or not. Ideally there would be three settings: default, force display, and force hide.
Why is that useful? If taskbar items aren’t grouped, a label will be displayed next to the item (similar to how it worked pre-Windows 7) so the label over the preview thumbnail would be redundant. However, if you have set the taskbar to display vertically (on the left or right side) then the labels won’t show unless you change the taskbar width. So, you could end up completely without labels depending on your grouping settings.
Hope you can consider adding this 🙂
Hi, I really like your soft!
I have one small problem. After I installed it, the Winamp controls that where available when hovering over the taskbar button disappeared. I can no longer pause, advance, play, etc….
any idea???
Thanks!!!
Luciano
Problem solved!! I don´t know what happened, maybe I needed a restart.
Love the program!!!
Hi,
I just tried this program and I really loved it.
It partly solved my problem which I asked on superuser: http://superuser.com/questions/561408/how-to-sort-windows-7-jump-lists/561422?noredirect=1#comment684661_561422
With your taskbar tweaker, I solved my issue using the taskbar inspector. The inspector has an option to sort items in a group. But its very cumbersome to do it everytime you need windows sorted in each group.
I would like to make a feature request.
Is it possible to add an option to always keep the windows within a group sorted by their names?
In one of your previous comments on this page I learned that you won’t be working on this anymore except for a pending Serbian translation.
I would like to know if you have any thoughts of open sourcing this great piece of software?
I understand that you might think that adding more features will polute the product. But if you open source on github, you still don’t have to add features. Other people can fork it and do their experiments.
The Serbian translation is not pending anymore 🙂
And, in fact, I don’t have much time lately to work on the tweaker – especially serious features which take lots of time to implement, like the option to keep windows sorted as you requested.
I do not plan to opensource it.
In fact, I do have a couple of “experiments” – options which can be turned on by modifying the registry. See help for more information.
Does anyone know if there is any utility that will allow me to make apps to stop appearing in the taskbar…PERIOD!! ?
I’m wanting to remove any and all apps (except those in my sys-tray) from showing up in the taskbar…so that I can finally have all apps to show up in a RocketDock or XWindowsDock.
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated….
Thank you all in advance.
Crockett812
Try winapiexec:
http://rammichael.com/winapiexec
Command line option to hide:
u@ShowWindow ( u@GetPropW ( u@FindWindowW Shell_TrayWnd 0 ) TaskbandHWND ) 0Command line option to show:
u@ShowWindow ( u@GetPropW ( u@FindWindowW Shell_TrayWnd 0 ) TaskbandHWND ) 5Put a shortcut on startup or something.
There is setting for right click and middle click but no left click? I want that when window is on top and task bar button is left click, window is not becoming minimize. is possible with your program?
Yes, there’s a registry option for it.
Branch:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\7 Taskbar Tweaker\Mouse Button Control
Name:
taskbaritem|lclick
Value (DWORD):
1
Was looking all over for a program that could do this! Just to confirm, the section in the INI file has to be named “[Mouse Button Control]”, right? The help file doesn’t seem to be too clear about this (the INI by default has Config and OptionsEx but no Mouse Button Control).
Yes.
Hi,
In KDE linux 4.10, there is a nice option for taskbar that is if we left click on the taskbar item it show the open windows as list and if we hover it shows thumbnail window.
Can you please add this feature in your request list.
Thanks a lot for this great software!
Hi,
See my comment here:
http://www.tweaker.userecho.com/topic/142425-left-click-on-combined-items-open-list/
Hi RaMMicHael,
Have you considered trying to implement a fix for the bug where taskbar buttons incorrectly remain highlighted after the cursor is moved away? See https://www.niftyhost.us/support/thread-1644.html for examples.
This happens quite often on my Win7 Pro x64 machine, but I haven’t found the cause yet.
Also, thanks for making this software available!
Hi TomH,
I’m familiar with that bug. It’s very rare, and there’s a workaround for it, so I never actually bothered looking at it.
I’ve made a translation for Macedonian language. But now i can’t open the ‘exe resources’ file because it displays the following error : ‘Error in file …\exe\rsrc.rc Line 1728: Character string expected.’
1. What should i do to remove this error mesage?
2. Where to upload the translation after i’m done?
P.S. I’m no programer.
Please email me the files that won’t open.
My email is available here:
http://rammichael.com/about
Огромное спасибо за этот замечательный набор твиков!
Как жаль, что я нашел его только сейчас, а не 2 года назад, когда только начал привыкать к новой системе.
Отдельная благодарность за старое контекстное меню при нажатии правой кнопкой мыши – никак не мог привыкнуть, что новое меню было расположено выше чем раньше.
огромное спасибо за отличную прогу
через реестр можно сделать emptyspace|lclick 1
но у меня что-то все равно только по дабл клику сворачивается
это у меня лыжи не едут или багофича?
просто у меня автохоткей скрипт который по одному клику на таскбаре сворачивает
и одним кликом это гораздо удобнее чем двумя 8) (я естественно автохоткей
выключал для чистоты теста)
я когда-то пользовался bblean (альтернативный таскбар)
и были у меня там настроены хоткеи:
win-up/down – развернуть все окна/свернуть
win-right/left – следующее окно/предыдущее
и было это очень удобно переключатся между окнами с клавы
(причем переключались окна в правильном порядке расположения на таскбаре
а не z-ордер криво косо как по вариантам alt-tab)
с тех пор мечтаю повторить это со стандартным таскбаром, но максимум
что получается это косые варианты alt-tab через авто-хоткей
у вас есть замечательная фича переключения окон колесиком мыши над таскбаром
(причем переключаются они в правильном порядке, что замечательно)
но это не очень удобно делать колесом мыши, как-то слишком чувствительно получается
(обычно колесиком скролятся страницы сразу по много шагов), да и колесиком
над таскбаром мне например громкость удобнее изменять)
может если вам эта идея понравится переключать по win-left,right вы реализуете?
(ну и сворачивать все\разворачивать по win-up,down заодно)
было бы просто замечательно.
также в вашей программе есть настройки двойного нажатия\средней кнопки мыши
над таскбаром – было бы замечательно еслиб там было действие следующее окно\предыдущее
я бы настроил rclick над тасбаром – следующее окно, я думаю удобно было бы.
Исправил в версии 4.1.7.
Сделал в версии 4.1.7.
Добавил опцию в 4.1.7.
…
С первым апреля 🙂
А теперь серьезно:
Багофича семерки. В восьмерке исправили. В версии 4.1.7 я испровляю и для семерки, так что теперь должно работать.
Это вроде как системные хоткеи. Как минимум, RegisterHotKey их не берет.
Это тоже проблематично – в свези с нажатием теряется фокус, и уже нету активного окна, а значит и следующего нету. Можно, конечно, как нибудь обойти эту проблему – запоминать последнее активное окошко итд., но все же мутная фича получается.
Про себя скажу, что пользуюсь переключением колесом мыши, и не жалуюсь – очень удобно. Может Вам следует подкорректировать чувствительность.
А контроль звуком я настроил на область уведомлений.
Hi,
Multipage Taskbar – I want to drag a button from current taskbar to the “hidden” taskbar. When I’m dragging downward (or upward) the taskbar is not paging.
Can you enable this?
Hi, thanks for great program 😉
Can you add option for adding numbers for items in taskbar (it will be useful when using shortcuts like “Win+9” (hard to determine that numbers quickly)), please?
P.S: here is screenshot of what I’m talking about
Have you tried 7 Taskbar Numberer?
http://rammichael.com/7-taskbar-numberer
Currently it supports Windows 7 only, but I plan to port it to Windows 8 too.
7+ Taskbar Numberer now supports Windows 8 as well.
Is it possible to save the Taskbar Inspector application IDs? I get everything set up the way I like and then upon a reboot I have to start all over again.
If I remember correctly, the answer to your question is this:
http://code.google.com/p/win7appid/
I don’t understand how to use it. 🙁
win7appid is a command line tool to set an Appilcation ID to a shortcut. You can take two shortcuts of different programs, assign them the same Appilcation ID, and they will group.
1. Could there be option to choose how much gap can we remove in “Remove extra gap between items” function? I think after enabling that option there’s still lot of space between the icons that can be removed.
2. How to modify system to insert that change permanently, without having tweaker enabled?
3. Is there a possibility to modify by the tweaker clock area in win7 (when 1 row taskbar is set and only clock is visible) to:
– increase size of the clock so it will fill most of the clock area, or to
– decrease clock area so it would match the clock size?
1. Currently that’s not possible.
2. See the first question of the FAQ above.
3. There are no such options. The next version would provide an option to add seconds to the clock.
3. Is this possible to implement such function?
Should be possible, but for now it’s not planned.
You can post the idea here so other interested users could vote for it.
Hello RaMMicHaeL,
thank you very much for your fantastic work. I use your program since a few years and it makes my life easier 🙂
Your a hero.
Hello and thank you for this software!
I’d like to suggest a feature: middle click anywhere on desktop to hide/unhide icons.
Hi,
This is the perfect place for suggestions:
http://tweaker.userecho.com/
Hi,
Clock with seconds very nice. Good for you.
I wanted to ask if it takes more resources / performance?
Hi,
Theoretically, yes. After all, it fetches the time and updates the text every second instead of every minute.
But in reality, I don’t think it would have a noticeable impact on your system. It’s not 1995 🙂
As a matter of fact, Explorer still uses 0% CPU cycles on my machine.
Thanks for this software, i love it!!
Have been using Taskbar Tweaker for some time.
It is very useful. I like the idea of thoughtful updates – and now, seconds on the clock.
Спасибо огромное за эту незаменимую программу! Пользуюсь уже месяц, седьмая винда уже не кажется катастрофически неудобной.
Есть одно предложение/пожелание: добавить возможность уменьшения расстояния между значками (и место, занимаемое часами тоже) в трее. А то сейчас тратится уж слишком много места на это.
Вот здесь forum.ixbt.com/topic.cgi?id=22:79058 эту проблему уже затрагивали, но ничего не решили.
Еще раз спасибо.
Если речь об этом баге:
http://tweaker.userecho.com/topic/164363-seconds-cut-off/#comment_187875
Есть фикс, включаемый опцией в реестре:
http://i.imgur.com/rIAPKG1.png
Пожалуйста 🙂
Не совсем. Попытался изобразить, что имею в виду: http://s58.radikal.ru/i162/1304/26/5a66ef3d239c.png
Сверху то, что сейчас, внизу – как хотелось бы.
Ясно. Учту на будущее, а пока можете записать сюда:
http://tweaker.userecho.com/
Can you please add a feature which would permanently disable taskbar icons movement and unpin feature, I really want to disable those two features permanently.
It’s not planned.
Feel free to suggest your feature here, so others could vote for it:
http://tweaker.userecho.com/
Latest version causes TClock light (tclocklight-040702-3) to crash if 7+TT is loaded first.
I’ve looked at it.
It seems to be incompatible with the previous tweaker versions as well.
Run the tweaker -> run TClock -> close TClock -> close the tweaker = a crash, unrelated to the tweaker version.
The difference now is that the tweaker subclasses the clock window, TClock checks this and refuses to run.
Here’s a patched version of the TClock library, with the check removed:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3murp1h29ojjkgk/tcdll_no_clock_subclass_check.zip?dl=1
Awesome, thanks! My must-have addins can get along again. FWIW, my machine always throws an error at shut down, and now I know why…
New Feature request for adding “Window on top” toggle button next minimize button, hope this will help everyone.
Thanks in Advance!
Riz London
This program is a godsend. After 6 months of adjusting to windows 7’s non-configurable behaviors, it’s like opening a window in a stuffy room, finally regaining the ability to actually sort my taskbar according to an organized workflow rather than being forced to group on an irrelevant factor.
Gaining the ability to scroll through windows like I always wanted is just icing on the cake. Unfortunately, that icing hasn’t quite spread to cover the cake. More specifically, when using large icons the normal-sized taskbar buttons do not extend to the bottom of the taskbar (as expected and happily so). Less happily, the space between the taskbar and edge of screen does not respond to scroll events, making what should be a quick snap to screen edge a careful placement of the mouse pointer. Task list scrolling would be a much more useful and convenient feature if the scroll-sensitive area extended across the full taskbar area to the edge of the screen.
Regardless of this minor issue, you sir are a scholar and gentleman for providing this excellent fix for some of Microsoft’s ever-expanding ineptitude.
I really love Taskbar Tweaker, couldn’t live without it.
But in the last few weeks, I have noticed that Taskbar Tweaker updates almost every day, but at least once a week. Although I like programs that update frequently and I’m always trying to keep them up to date, this is a bit too much for me – almost every time I start my computer, Taskbar Tweaker pops up.
Is that really necessary? I have been running this piece of software for a couple years now, and it was always running smoothly for me, so I don’t really see the need for such frequent updates.
Other than that – keep up the great work 🙂
All the best,
Albert
Hi Albert,
I’ve replied here:
http://tweaker.userecho.com/topic/165205-please-allow-automatic-silent-updates/
I have a feature suggestion now that I see that you added an option to display the seconds in the clock: Do you know the application T-Clock? It’s a tool that lets you customise the behaviour and appearance of the taskbar clock. I only use it to show me the current week, the date in a custom format (like “21. Apr”) and the time incl. seconds. I also set a slightly bolder font so it’s better visible in the very corner of the screen, and some extra spacing around it (top and bottom, for a vertical taskbar). Do you think you could also include such features in the Taskbar Tweaker? I think it would well fit in there and T-Clock is a bit old and little maintained, and sometimes a bit unstable.
For now, such options are not planned.
Also see my comment here:
http://tweaker.userecho.com/topic/164567-week-number/
Ok, thank you for the quick feedback. No problem, I can still use T-Clock. It was just an idea to reduce the number of applications.
Can you add new feature like “Disable taskbar shuffle”???
Can you add another feature that would fix vertical taskbar scroll to the much more sensible split?
http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2010/november/taskbar_split.jpg
http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2010/november/taskbar_scroll.jpg
You’re welcomed to vote for the feature:
http://www.tweaker.userecho.com/topic/154279-windows-7-vertical-taskbar-with-mutiple-columns-like-in-xp/
Can you make gap between pinned items even smaller? Just as tray icons spaces would be the best.
The same thing with clock. Even when seconds enabled there’s to many empty space on sides.
For now it’s not planned.
You’re welcomed to vote:
http://tweaker.userecho.com/topic/164395-remove-gap-between-items/
If you’re referring to the following bug:
http://tweaker.userecho.com/topic/164363-seconds-cut-off/#comment_187875
There’s a registry option to fix this.
For pinned items I only want it to be even more squeezed than it’s now with “Remove extra gap between items” enabled. I don’t mean any new function, just changing what is.
For the clock space, the same thing, nothing new. I have tray_clock_fix_width value enabled in registry, but wanted to cut even more empty space on clock sides.
Or is it max that can be cut for pinned items and clock with this app?
Currently, yes.
I keep getting an error when I try to update to version 4.2.2. Previous versions worked like normal, but this one won’t, even after multiple reboots and redownloads.
Do you know why?
Here’s the error message verbatim:
—————————
7+ Taskbar Tweaker v4.2.2 Setup
—————————
Error opening file for writing:
C:\Users\*UserName*\AppData\Roaming\7+ Taskbar Tweaker\inject.dll
Click Abort to stop the installation,
Retry to try again, or
Ignore to skip this file.
—————————
Abort Retry Ignore
—————————
By the way, I love this tool very much and wish Windows had options such as these natively.
The error message means that the old .dll file cannot be replaced with the new file.
I don’t know what might be the reason, but you can try the following:
* Make sure the tweaker is closed before updating.
* Try closing Explorer before updating. How to do that:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/hidden-trick-to-close-windows-explorer-in-vista/
* Try running the installer as administrator.
I figured that out and had already tried what you said, but none of them worked. I tried deleting it manually (even when Explorer was closed, with another application), but I still could not. Eventually after three of four reboots I was able to delete it and install the new version fine.
I’m on Win 8 and while I start Task Manager, I can’t use scroll to minimize/restore windows. It seems like taskmgr it’s stealing focus and no matter where I scroll on my screen, the taskmgr list will have focus.
If I click anywhere on the screen and taskmgr loses focus, I can use the scroll for minimize restore the windows again.
That’s because Task Manager runs as administrator, while explorer doesn’t.
The same happens for all programs that run as administrator e.g. regedit or installers.
So, is there anything I could do to avoid this happening ? I’ve already tried to run 7+TT as admin but it didn’t helped. Is there any way so I could run 7+TT as System process and would that help ?
The mouse wheel injection is done from the context of the explorer’s process, not the tweaker’s. So in general, running both explorer and the tweaker as administrator should solve it, but I don’t think it’s worth the effort.
7+TT works flawlessly when I log in with the “hidden” Administrator Account.
Problem solved 😛
Now I just need to deal with that metro c**p and uac approval gibberish…
Just turn User Account Control off. I dealt with it for two and a half years before finally turning it off because it complicated so many things, especially modifying the Start menu or trying to save a file in a system directory. Besides, I am not a total computer newbie, so I am not going to do something stupid.
No UAC, No Metro Apps… Not that it bothers me very much but… I just didn’t found any Magic Wand that will totally wipe Metro from my Windows… sadly… 🙁
So if I can’t nuke Metro from my PC at least I’d like to have it working… 😐
Oh. I’m on Windows 7 and didn’t realise Metro wouldn’t work if UAC was off.
I was just testing Windows 8. I reverted back to Windows 7… Never going to pay M$ money for Windows 8. And this is final.
)*&%$ Windows 8!
For me, the transition from XP to 7 was a pain. But it was a transition between “2 different things”… Transition from 7 to 8 it’s plain stupid… Unless you have a tablet, there’s NO REASON to “upgrade” to Win 8. I hate tablets too… along with laptops. The ONLY improvements W8 brought to me over W7 was the Up button and the ISO/VHD mount. The ribbon was also questionable as an improvement… It sure was an addition. All in all, nothing special to make you leave W7 in the past…
Huh…? Now I have another problem with v4.2.3. Whenever 7TT starts it says:
“Error
7+ Taskbar Tweaker: Could not load library (101)”
I haven’t tried restarting yet, but I have restarted Explorer multiple times.
Error 101 means that the executable version and the inject.dll file version don’t match.
Most probably the old inject.dll couldn’t be overwritten.
I don’t know why your system locks inject.dll, maybe it’s worth trying a program like Unlocker:
http://www.emptyloop.com/unlocker/
Когда выбрано двойное нажатие на панели задач – ничего по умолчанию, все равно не пропускает двойной щелчок, для вызова функций других программ.
Установлен Win7x64 и qttabbar, его менюшка desktop tool, не появляется при двойном щелчке на панели задач.
Если возможно, поправьте пожалуйста.
Поправил в v4.2.4.
Thanks for that great program !!!
What is the license of this app? There’s no mention about this anywhere and it’s unclear when and where can one use it.
There is no license. 7+TT it’s a free program. A GREAT one too.
I guess it’s one of the top 3 free apps on the web for Win 7. At least for me that is.
7+TT it’s in my system and it’s there to stay. First apps when I do a clean install are & 7-Zip 7+TT & QTTB.
My PC just doesn’t work if I don’t have those installed 😉
No doubt it’s a great tool, but because I’d like to use it on my job computer, I’d like to have it explicitly stated that this is OK with the author and copyright holder. Please do add clear information to “about box” or something. Thanks in advance!
Oh, Work PC… I don’t have a clue…
I guess you’ll just wait for MicHaeL to reply.
Feel free to use it whenever and wherever you want 🙂
Great, thanks! Would be so nice if you didn’t mind adding info about this to the next build/release. 😉
I’ve added it to the FAQ above.
I forgot to mention that you are free to make a donation. Unlike me… 🙁
I recently installed this useful utility. So far, I’m liking it okay. The thing that would put it over the top of similar utilities is the ability to control what the taskbar buttons say.
I am a programmer and I often have 3+ instances of SQL open. (This prevents me from accidentally making a change to the production or test DB instead of the development DB.) The problem with this is that the taskbar buttons all say “Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio” and it’s hard to keep track of which one is which. Do you foresee adding a “Rename” option on the standard right-click menu?
Such an option is not planned.
You might want to fill a suggestion, so that others could vote for it:
http://tweaker.userecho.com/
P.S. what “similar utilities” are you talking about?
When portable application is pinned to taskbar and running, after a while this application will lose its taskbar icon highlight, application is still running though because I can see it in my Task Manager, but when I click its taskbar icon it will open a new program instance instead of already running application, it failed to open already running application because taskbar icon lost its highlight, this problem occurs only with portable application, version 4.2.2 didn’t have this problem. And this problem occurs with all portable applications which I have tried.
So the problem is: Portable application which is pinned to taskbar will lose its highlight after a while.
I saw your report on the tracker.
The main issue here is that that you can’t pin the portable tweaker from the jump list.
I’ll try to address this in the next version.
But version 4.2.2 didn’t have this problem, when I use version 4.2.2 and portable application was pinned to taskbar and running it maintained its highlight, version 4.2.4 has somekind of bug which will hide pinned icons highlight time to time.
There were no changes in the portable version between v4.2.2 and v4.2.4.
Can you make screenshots of both v4.2.2 and v4.2.4 open, with the Taskbar Inspector open as well?
Do you still have version 4.2.2 installer somewhere? I didn’t have any problems with that version.
You can grab it here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mcbychsh0xc1dvu/8-Lj2sg3NP
After taking a closer look, I don’t think I’m going to fix it at all.
Here’s what happens:
When you pin the tweaker’s icon by dragging the file to the taskbar, it pins with a different Application ID. That’s why when you launch the tweaker, it doesn’t replace the pinned button, but creates a new one.
The correct way to pin the icon is from the jump list, but the portable version of the tweaker doesn’t allow to do that, because the running module is not an .exe file.
To change that, I need to either have a separate portable version (instead of using the same files for both), or use some ugly workaround, both of which I don’t want to do.
As a side note, may I ask why don’t you use the non-portable version? After all, there’s nothing portable with it if you pin it on the taskbar.
That’s not what I meant, I meant other portable applications not 7+TT, for example CCleaner portable and Deffragler portable and many other portable applications too, for me it doesn’t create a new taskbar icon, it only loses the highlight of the existing pinned taskbar icon time to time. I have to manually close the running application via Task Manager to be able to get this highlight back after I re-run this portable icon by clicking its pinned taskbar icon.
I don’t understand the issue.
Can you create screenshots of how it was before and how it is now?
Once I installed version 4.2.2 back pinned portable tasbkar icon will maintain its highlight when it’s running, when I used 4.2.4 version pinned taskbar lost its highlight. When application is running maximized or minimzed it should maintain its taskbar highlight what 4.2.2 does, but 4.2.4 does not.
What do you mean by “maintain its highlight”?
It would be best if you’ll provide a screenshot.
I mean these highlights:
http://imageshack.us/f/42/94286417.png/
Make a screenshot of your tweaker options, so I’ll try to reproduce the bug.
Here:
http://imageshack.us/f/109/17745243.png/
I used exactly the same settings in 4.2.4 too but it caused this disappearing highlight problem.
Portable CCleaner:
Pinned item:
http://i.imgur.com/5CNaGgY.png
Running app:
http://i.imgur.com/hJhLHIt.png
Exactly the same happens with v4.2.4.
How do I reproduce the issue?
Also, try turning off the hanging bug fix for v4.2.4, branch:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\7 Taskbar Tweaker\OptionsEx
Name:
fix_hang_reposition
Value:
0
Does it fix the issue?
I really like this utility. Your program is very useful & helpful
Could you develope more 02 functions for windows 32 & 64 bit :
– Always on top
– Minimize to tray
When we right-click on any title of windows or right-click on taskbar items, it will appear in context menu.
These functions are not planned.
There are other apps around, though, which offer such functions.
Some other apps has this function but not for windows 64bit, just for windows 32bit
I use windows 64 bit & find such app but till now there is no app for windows 64bit.