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I'm using Windows 8 and appreciate the ability to reorder my programs at will in the taskbar. However, for different windows of the same program - I have three Firefox windows, for instance - I can't seem to reorder them; what's worse, they seem to regularly switch themselves around for no reason I can see.

I usually want my main Firefox window to be the first (leftmost) one in the taskbar, with my work window second and the third window last, but every now and then they get mixed up and I have to get used to remembering which is which all over again, and I can't figure out how to manually fix them. I think this happens with programs other than Firefox too, but I suppose I could be misremembering.

  1. Is there any way to reorder the taskbar buttons corresponding to multiple windows of the same program manually?

  2. Why does the order of my Firefox windows keep shifting around? Is there a way to ensure it keeps the order straight?

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    I’m still running Window 7, and I can attest that this phenomenon occurs with many programs; specifically, Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer, and I believe that I’ve seen it in Word and Notepad as well. Related questions (for Windows 7): show taskbar icons in opened order and Reorder Windows 7 taskbar items.
    – Scott - Слава Україні
    Nov 25, 2013 at 16:47
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    This could be helpful :) Suppose there were three Firefox windows A B C, and now the order is C B A. Close (X) (you may have to click past a warning if there are more than one tab) C and B, and in A: File (Alt + F) > Work Offline, and then from History (Alt + S) > Recently Closed Windows, restore B first, and then C. Work Offline helps to reload pages/tabs from the memory/disk cache.
    – vWil
    Nov 29, 2013 at 14:22
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    Also, please note that the default number of restorable windows is three which can be changed via browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo in about:config; the default number of restorable tabs per window is 10 (browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo). Changing the default values to very high values may increase memory usage correspondingly.
    – vWil
    Nov 29, 2013 at 14:27
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    Still looking forward to a method without 3rd party software. Is it possible?
    – X X
    Jul 9, 2020 at 15:09
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    For anyone on Windows 11: superuser.com/questions/1777189/…
    – awe lotta
    Sep 10 at 14:40

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Figured I'd share how I got this solved.

Scott's comment pointed me to this question: Reorder Windows 7 taskbar items The accepted answer to that points to a program now called 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, which as it turns out works with Windows 8 as well as 7 now. It not only offers options for easily reordering windows within a taskbar group (either by right-clicking and dragging the taskbar tabs themselves or by dragging the preview windows), but also a whole lot of further options for customizations and conveniences. So for anyone else frustrated with this, that program is exactly what you're looking for and more.

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    It also supports Windows 10 now.
    – Olson.dev
    Oct 2, 2015 at 21:01
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    Except that it wants to be memory-resident. If possible, I want to just modify the registry once to achieve the don't-reorder-the-taskbar functionality. Is there a registry hack for this?
    – jrw32982
    May 2, 2017 at 22:20
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    Straight from the FAQ: Q: Which registry keys does 7+ Taskbar Tweaker modify? I don’t need extra processes in my system. A: The only registry keys the tweaker modifies are its own settings. There are no registry keys for the options it provides. The tweaker does that by injecting a DLL to explorer, hooking/subclassing/some other methods of the dark side. As for extra processes, the tweaker is a native program, and is very lightweight. It shouldn’t slow down your system, and uses an extremely small amount of memory. Also, you can hide the tray icon if you want.
    – Austin Hanson
    Nov 1, 2017 at 19:57
  • Unfortunately this doesn't work! While Firefox is not running on the background and taskbar tweaker is set to launch at windows bootup. I Am on Win 10.
    – empleat
    May 29, 2021 at 18:51

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