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I have several programs - for example iTunes and Git Extensions - that have what appears to be custom UI that displays when I hover their icon in the taskbar. For iTunes it's just the play/pause button and the forward and back buttons. For git extensions it's buttons to push and pull the current repo.

Sometimes, though, it just shows a tiny text tooltip with just the name of the program in it. And for a while now that's all I get.

I'm not sure if it's a setting I messed around with at some point, but it seemed inconsistent when it was working.

Is there a way to always get the intended 'custom UI' to display on hover?

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What you are describing sounds like one of the symptoms of the the stuck-highlight problem that has plagues Windows since Vista.

Not only does the highlight on the taskbar buttons get stuck sometimes, but the tooltips get messed up and the Aero Preview function fails to work. It is annoying as all hell and remains a problem to this day (for some reason Microsoft just won’t/can’t fix it).

You can temporarily fix the problem by opening the native context-menu for any item on the taskbar using one of these methods:

  • With both the keyboard and mouse, hold ⇧ Shift and right-click one of the taskbar buttons.

  • With only the mouse, right-click one of the taskbar buttons, left-click a button, wait for the Aero Preview window to pop up over the button, right-click it to open the context-menu, then click somewhere else to dismiss the menu.

  • With just the keyboard, hold the ⊞ Win key and press a number corresponding to one of the taskbar buttons—e.g., ⊞ Win+1 to access the first button. (Alternately, you can press ⊞ Win+T to focus the taskbar, then Tab to the first button.) Now you can press the ▤ Apps/Context key to open the context-menu, then Esc to dismiss it.

Unfortunately, this is only a temporary fix and the problem usually returns fairly quickly (usually after minimizing/restoring a few windows).

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  • In an act of supreme irony and spite, my machine is currently working ok, so I can't test the fix. I will as soon as it misbehaves though, and give it a go. Thanks! Apr 24, 2014 at 15:07
  • Yup - worked like a charm. I'm not sure if the three bullet points you provided are steps or just different things to try that individually might fix the issue, but I only did the first one and the first part of the second one and it cleared it up. Depending on the underlying cause, it may be that various factors are in play that trigger the bug, so some or all of what you listed may be needed depending on the cause in any specific case. Thanks again. May 2, 2014 at 15:23
  • I'm not sure if the three bullet points you provided are steps or just different things to try that individually might fix the issue Yes, they are keyboard-only and mouse-only ways to accomplish it.
    – Synetech
    May 11, 2014 at 2:09

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