Windhawk mods for the Windows 11 taskbar
A few weeks ago, Windhawk, the customization marketplace for Windows programs, was released. You can read the announcement blog post for more details and for the motivation behind creating it. One of the sections of the blog post was dedicated to 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.
Regarding the future of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker: It will keep existing as a separate program which supports Windows 7 to Windows 10. As mentioned in a recent blog post, most parts of the taskbar were reimplemented in Windows 11, and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker can’t be made to work with the new taskbar without a huge amount of work. My plan, at least in the short term, is to implement the most demanded customizations for Windows 11 as Windhawk mods.
Below is a table with features that are available in Windows 10 but are missing in Windows 11. Some of the features are part of Windows 10 (marked with the 
icon) and some are part of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker (marked with the 
icon). Please vote for the features that you’d like to have back in Windows 11. I’ll prioritize implementing the most requested features as Windhawk mods. For each implemented feature, the page will be updated to reflect the current status.
Voting can be done in two ways, simple voting and a donation. I added the donation option to be able to give extra priority to votes of users who wish to support the project with a donation. To vote with a donation, add the feature hashtag to the donation comment like this. Donations are a great motivating factor (thanks!), and I think that letting supporters decide where to focus first is a nice perk.
| Feature | Votes | Donations | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Right click: Standard window menu |
✅ Done | ||
| Middle click: Switch to / Minimize / Close |
✔️ Partial | ||
| Dropping: Open with |
|||
| Hovering: List / Tooltip / Nothing |
✅ Done | ||
| Thumbnails: Drag to reorder |
✅ Done | ||
| Thumbnails: Left click on the active thumbnail minimizes the window |
|||
| Pinned items: Remove extra gap between items |
✔️ Partial | ||
| Pinned items: Open with double click |
✅ Done | ||
| Grouping: Don’t group |
✅ Done | ||
| Grouping: When not grouping, place new items next to the existing ones |
✅ Done | ||
| Grouping: Don’t group pinned items |
✅ Done | ||
| Grouping: Drag within/between groups using right mouse button |
|||
| Left click on combined item: Cycle through windows |
✅ Done | ||
| Mouse wheel: Cycle between taskbar buttons |
✅ Done | ||
| Minimize/restore when mouse is over: Taskbar buttons / Thumbnails |
✅ Done | ||
| Control volume when mouse is over: The taskbar / The notification area |
✅ Done | ||
| Customize double/middle click on empty space |
✅ Done | ||
| Hide the Start button |
✔️ Partial | ||
| Hide the “Show desktop” button |
✅ Done | ||
| Display seconds on the tray clock |
✅ Done | ||
| Reserve empty space on taskbar |
|||
| Change the size of taskbar icons |
✅ Done | ||
| Taskbar Inspector |
|||
| Change padding between tray icons |
✅ Done | ||
| Decombine taskbar buttons |
✅ Done | ||
| Show labels in taskbar buttons |
✅ Done | ||
| Taskbar on the top of the screen |
✅ Done | ||
| Taskbar on the side of the screen |
✅ Done | ||
| Open Taskbar Manager via right click |
⭐ | ||
| Taskbar with multiple rows |
✅ Done | ||
| Taskbar toolbars |
If a feature that you’d like to see in Windows 11 is not in the table, please let me know in the comments below.
Tags: 7+ taskbar tweaker, windhawk
Hi. I am trying to move away from the “7+ Taskbar Tweaker”, in Win 11, but there is one thing I cant seem to be able to activate/install with Winhawk, that the 7+ has: “Decombine -Active Group – And show labels”
I saw here that it says ” Decombine taskbar buttons” – Done and “Taskbar Labels for windows 11” is mentioned there, but as I saw there is no way to achieve decombining the active group with that.
It is an incredible feature (for me at least), because if I work with multiple file explorer windows, I can see the true labels in taskbar (i.e: Tools, Movies etc) and also I can copy,move files etc quickly between the explorer windows. The benefit is if i go to edge or notepad etc, the explorer recombines/regroups itself so is all neat on the taskbar.
Is there a way to achieve the “Group by Application id” then “Combine Grouped buttons” then “Decombine -Active Group…” with Winhawk somehow?
Thank You.
Hi Adrian,
Unfortunately, there’s no Windhawk mod at this time to help with this.
It’s not in the table because it felt too specific to me, and indeed, not many users complained that they miss it. I might look at it at some point, but due to the complexity of implementing it for the new taskbar, and due to the low demand, it’s not a high priority.
Thank You so much for responding. I searched and searched how to activate it for a while now , trying mods etc, I could not figure it out. I least I know for sure that is not possible currently thanks to Your response. I will stick with 7+ for as long as I can ( maybe till I have to upgrade to 24h2 or newer).
For now I’m still using StartAllBack 3.7.11 and Win 11 23H2 in order to keep them compatible with 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.
Best wishes !
Is there any plan to implement
Windhawk for the feature that corresponds to
Access Advanced Options:
disable_topmost in the 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.
The combination of ExplorerPatcher and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker
does not work on win11 24h2, and I can’t find anything on the market that can achieve the same functionality…
Hi, yes, it’s on my list and I plan on looking at it at some point.
Hi Michael, I only used one Mod-Taskbar Labels for Windows 11，here are my settings: 1、Mode-Hide labels, don’t combine taskbar buttons; 2、Running indicator style-On the left(below the icon); 3、Progress indicator style-Same as running indicator style.
I Pinned Edge icon on taskbar, when I close Edge, sometimes there will be an gray indicator as Full width style under Edge icon which has already closed.
I don’t know under what circumstance this issue will be triggered, maybe it’s a bug?
Hi, it sounds like this issue which is probably a bug in Windows, please see my last comment here:
https://github.com/ramensoftware/windhawk-mods/issues/1173
One of the things I want is to change the Start button icon.
You can use the Windows 11 Taskbar Styler mod with the following settings:
https://github.com/ramensoftware/windows-11-taskbar-styling-guide?tab=readme-ov-file#start-button-image