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I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate, and IE 8, and have the taskbar in icon view. I'm not sure how to explain this, but I'm amazed at how each tab in IE8 seems to act like a new "thing" in the taskbar (as if each tab was a window).

Each tab acts like a different window in the taskbar although they are actually running in the same window. Now when I use IE 8 it looks (in the taskbar) like there's 15 windows open when in fact the taskbar is simply showing the 15 tabs.

Tabs displayed in stack

More simply put, it's displaying a "stack" for all of the tabs when I'd rather have the icon act like, for example, Firefox so that a stack is only shown for the multiple windows.

Is there a way to disable this strange "taskbar" effect? I'd rather have the taskbar show the main window and not the tabs individually.

There has to be a simple way to do this.

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    Ironically, some people criticizes Firefox for not showing the tabs as individual processes on the taskbar like IE8, which means you can’t see the open pages without switching to the browser. :)
    – Leonardo
    Apr 15, 2010 at 4:50
  • @Leonardo: The task bar doesn't care about processes there. It cares about windows belonging to similar processes and you can make that distinction for your own as a developer (for MDI or tabbed interfaces for example).
    – Joey
    Apr 15, 2010 at 5:03
  • Thanks, Johannes, I didn't use the right word (I said processes to match the language of the question.)
    – Leonardo
    Apr 15, 2010 at 5:06
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    Ah... I should probably change the language of the question.
    – Vervious
    Apr 15, 2010 at 5:22
  • @Leonardo You can enable and disable this in FF, just as you can in MSIE.
    – kinokijuf
    Mar 6, 2014 at 15:04

1 Answer 1

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See "How to Disable IE8/IE9 Tab previews in Windows 7 taskbar"

To disable IE tab previews in taskbar, just open Internet Explorer > Tools > Internet Options. Open settings for ‘Tabs’ and uncheck the box saying ‘Show previews for individual tabs in the taskbar’. Click Ok and restart IE for letting changes to take effect.

(The Tabs settings are opened via a button in the General tab of Internet Options)

This solution works for Internet Explorer versions 8 through 11.

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  • It worked perfectly. Such a simple solution. I probably should have Googled a bit more before on asking on SU. :)
    – Vervious
    Apr 15, 2010 at 5:05
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    Nah... asking it here is the point so that it helps SU grow and helps everyone like me who comes here first to look for answers. It solved my problem; +1 for the question and for the answer. Sep 8, 2010 at 14:39
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    Works for Internet Explorer 9 too.
    – SgtOJ
    Mar 21, 2011 at 0:14
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    This still works 4 years later in IE11 (under Windows 7 at least anyway). :) Mar 6, 2014 at 15:01
  • @Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 Confirmed however it's worth noting the asterisk (following the checkbox label) that's used to infer the computer needs to be restarted. This is inaccurate on IE's part. I only had to click apply and restart the browser (not the computer). Feb 12, 2016 at 21:08

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