Items unpinned from taskbar are back after restart/sign out on Windows 10

Question

I have got a new installation of windows recently. Now when I do unpin items from taskbar that were there (IE, Edge, Explorer), they do come back after restart. A pinned chrome does not disappear though e.g.

Anything to fix this issue?

P.S. Just created a new user, and he has the same problem

P.P.S. Sign out is enough to get it back, no full restart needed

Answer 1

I had the same problem. Nothing works.

Finally, I found the XML file in my profile:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\LayoutModification.xml

The items were listed here in this section:

  </DefaultLayoutOverride>
    <CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection PinListPlacement="Replace">
    <defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
      <taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
-- items were here - removed
      </taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
    </defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
  </CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection>

Maybe this will help someone.

Answer 2

I managed to find a solution on Microsoft Technet.

I've also, personally found another way around it:

1. Open the explorer or the run prompt and go to %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Shell
2. Edit the LayoutModification.xml file using the Notepad or some other text-only editor
3. Locate the <taskbar:TaskbarPinList></taskbar:TaskbarPinList> entry and in that entry remove the line <taskbar:... /> adding Edge
4. Save that file and reboot.

This will not survive "major" updates to the system/Edge such as the April 2018 one, but you can simply do the above again to get rid of that impolite shortcut.

Answer 3

It appears that this was some corporate policy from domain that have done that and it's not possible to turn off that easy, but anyway, domain rules are a possibility when this happens.

Answer 4

First, go the following paths:

• C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar
• C:\Users\Public\company name\TaskBar (if this path doesn’t exist, ignore it)

Delete the items that you don’t want to show in taskbar.

Restart computer to see the result.

If no help, backup personal data, remove current account and create a new one, maybe your account is corrupted.

Good luck

Answer 5

It's the default behavior. I was searching far and wide for the solution to this issue, and then I realized something:
The file LayoutModification.xml was simply not there.

So rather than try to look elsewhere for those stubborn icons, you could just remove them by creating your own file:

1. Go to the path where the file is supposed to be: %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\
2. Open a text editor of your choice and create an empty file with the name LayoutModification.xml.
3. Paste the following layout in(reference):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LayoutModificationTemplate
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/LayoutModification"
    xmlns:defaultlayout="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/FullDefaultLayout"
    xmlns:start="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/StartLayout"
    xmlns:taskbar="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/TaskbarLayout"
    Version="1">
  <CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection PinListPlacement="Replace">
    <defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
      <taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
        <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Accessories\Notepad.lnk" />
      </taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
    </defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
 </CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection>
</LayoutModificationTemplate>

Notice the PinListPlacement="Replace" on line 8. That'll remove the old icons you have(bye bye annoying Edge and Store icons!) and add any you specify in the list(like the Notepad one I have here). Note that this doesn't affect the icons that you explicitly pin to the taskbar(those are controlled by the %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar folder).

Note: If you find the need to add any more icons, don't trust names in Explorer! Go to the General tab of the shortcut(.lnk file) you want to add and copy the path from there. The Explorer tends to have different names for some folders - mine had a name of "Windows Accessories" for a folder and a path name of just "Accessories". If you put the wrong path in, your icon won't show.

Answer 6

For my case, it doesn't work if I go to:

C:\Users\\**yourusername**\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Shell

Instead, I go to:

C:\Users\\**Default**\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Shell

There's LayoutModification.xml there. Everything is fixed after removing the Taskbar pin just like the top answer suggested:

 </DefaultLayoutOverride>
    <CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection PinListPlacement="Replace">
    <defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
      <taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
-- items were here - removed
      </taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
    </defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
  </CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection>

Answer 7

I was searching for the similar solution to prevent Opera automatically pinning itself to the taskbar each run. The solution provided above didn't work for me as both LayoutModification.xml in "default" and my user folders didn't contain such sections. I found working the suggestion in the following article:

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/prevent-pinning-or-unpinning-of-taskbar-items-in-windows-10

I added the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\NoPinningToTaskbar" DWORD32 option and set it to 1 then restarted Windows Explorer via the Task Manager and voila - after the next Opera start and exit it was not pinned anymore. But note that along with that "pin to taskbar" context option disappears as well from the context menu so if you need this option later again enable it back.