Windows 7 taskbar groups to use vertical menus only, not thumbnails?

Question

I frequently have 10 or more windows of the same application (e.g. Outlook, Word, IE, etc.) open at one time. Windows 7's new taskbar grouping thumbnail feature shows a preview of open windows (aka thumbnails) when you single-click on the taskbar group for that application.

But when I have over 10 windows open (more thumbnails than will fit horizontally on my screen), Windows reverts to a vertical menu. This is disconcerting since I need to train myself to deal with two separate behaviors and can never anticipate what I'm going to see when I click on a taskbar group.

Furthermore, I find the thumbnails more difficult to visually scan through (vs. the vertical menu) because only 1-2 words of each window's title are shown. Typically that's not enough text to disambiguate and help me find the right window.

I'd like to force Windows 7's taskbar grouping to always show a vertical menu (like in XP) instead of sometimes showing thumbnail previews and sometimes showing a vertical menu.

Anyone know how (whether?) this can be done?

UPDATE: BTW, I'm running the RTM version (build 7600) of Windows 7. There are apparently other solutions out there which work on earlier builds, but which don't work on the RTM build.

Answer 1

There's a registry key you can edit to get this behaviour even in modern versions of Windows 7:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband

Create a DWORD called NumThumbnails, and set it to 0 to achieve list mode for all taskbar groups.

Alternatively, you can set it to a number such as 3 or 4. Then apps with that many or fewer windows will use the thumbnails interface, but apps with more than that many windows will use the list mode.

This is my preferred setup, so that things like Outlook and Word still use thumbnails when I have 2-3 windows open, but Chrome and Windows Explorer (for which I typically have 10-15 windows open each) use the more informative list mode ("vertical menus").

Source: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/75804-taskbar-list-thumbnail-previews-mode-change.html

Answer 2

I came across this post while looking for an answer for this same issue.. One thing I've found -- if you go into Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings > Performance 'Settings' and uncheck 'Enable Desktop Composition' it will remove most Aero features, but it does give you a consistent vertically listed taskbar menu.

I like the regular Aero desktop visuals, so I'm kind of torn -- a pretty interface or a functional one.

Unfortunately at this time Microsoft won't let me do both!!!

Overall, the new task bar, 'pinning' of icons, Gigantic icon preview windows, and 'frequently used' lists are totally STUPID and USELESS.

-Silas

Answer 3

There seems to be multiple resources that state how to do this depending on the build version of your install. Here are a couple:

Try this:

1. Click on start and type on search bar gpedit.msc and press enter.

2. Now navigate to User Configuration, Administrative Templates, and Start Menu and Taskbar in left pan of Group Policy Editor.

3. Locate “Turn off Taskbar Thumbnails” in right pan of Group policy editor and double click on it.

4. Select Disable click apply and Press ok.

5. Now check your Taskbar, it shouldn’t show Thumbnails Preview.

If that doesn't work, try this:

1. Type regedit in RUN or Startmenu Searchbox and press Enter. It'll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

3.In right-side pane, create a new DWORD value DisablePreviewWindow and set its value to 1 to disable live previews.

4.Log off or restart your system to take effect.

And another:

1.In the Registry Editor , navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Note: If Explorer registry sub-key does not exist, then right click on Policies and click New -> Key and name it as “Explorer”.

2.In the right pane, right click on a blank spacce, and then select New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value.

3.Type TaskbarNoThumbnail as the name for the new registry value data.

4.Double click on TaskbarNoThumbnail to modify its value data.

5.Type 1 and click on OK.

6.Logoff and logon again or restart computer if needed.

Answer 4

I believe you get that list by turning off the Aero feature.