Grouping of same program windows is useful if you have more programs open than can comfortably fit on your screen resolution.

However, from a usability standpoint this grouping feature is not good, since you need to click twice to choose a running program, and the popup menu is not wide enough to allow you to differentiate which window is which.

No wonder Microsoft disabled it by default.

A cool and useful feature would be to either have a scrolling left/right on hover taskbar or else in Vista extend the mini live thumbnails feature, so if programs are grouped they would be shown in a column one thumbnail on top of the other.

riefnu

I've always gone by the rule that if one has so many windows open that grouping would be useful, one is trying to do too many things at once; the appropriate solution is not the group the taskbar buttons so that one can open even more, but to start closing them.

willywag

@riefnu: Taskbar Shuffle has an option to group without collapsing.

commenter2

i really dislike this feature in windows and i always have it disabled. why can't they have virtual desktops or something that makes some sense?

ampoliros

Taskbar Shuffle
[www.freewebs.com]

commenter2

I loathe the grouping function, and if you have more than 4-5 programs open on the regular taskbar, it compresses them to a useless size, so you can never find what you're looking for. And doubling it in height doesn't do enough.

My solution: For the past 10+ years, I've had my taskbar at the left edge of the screen, wide enough to have 5 Quick Launch shortcuts per row, and it gives me enough room to have 8-9 columnns of shortcuts right there, which encompass nearly every program I regularly use.

Another bonus in this is that the taskbar is then wide enough to see what each program's got running--multiple open Word documents that you can identify by filename, for instance.

The Start button is then at the upper left corner of the screen, which is a fairly logical place for a cascading menu, and even if the Start menu gets woolly and out-of-control with multiple installed programs (this is where grouping would come in handy--those stupid custom menus are worse than useless), you have the menu extending down rather than up, which is also nice.

hicks

Since I seem to inevitably trigger the grouping function anyway, I prefer the constant grouping to have predictable taskbar behavior.

In Windows XP, one can use the Tweak UI PowerToy to achieve this behavior and more. Not sure if there is a Tweak UI for Vista though.

pbj

@pbj: No, but there is a similar program called TweakVI.

ViperBorg

@hicks: Not to insult your wonderful solution, but I find it much easier to just index my start menu/program files with something like Launchy instead of using shortcuts. Gets me around using the entire bloated start menu.

darkpaladin79

@ampoliros: I think there is a PowerToy for XP that adds "virtual desktops". [www.microsoft.com]

Personally, I always turn off the grouping of the taskbar. It only adds to the confusion instead of clearing it.

Wessley

I really dislike the grouping feature on the taskbar. That, hiding extensions, and hiding files are the first things I always turn off.

Dillenger69

Grouping was always a feature that really irritated me,e ven back when I would Run 8 windows of non-tabbing IE6. Well, actually, ESPECIALLY when I would run 8 windows of non-tabbing IE6. Or IE 5. I forget.

Comeaja

Rather than grouping, try putting the taskbar aligned to the vertical edge of the screen.

csghone

+1 for Taskbar Shuffle... it's how Windows should have worked from the beginning.

The original LH post: [lifehacker.com]

bobbo33

*Falls down on her knees* I was searching for something like Taskbar Shuffle for YEARS! Thank you all who mentioned it!

Regarding the taskbar, I've got it vertically. I've got a gajillion shortcuts (with text shown), and a gajillion space for open windows. Also gajillion space for the tray bar and a lot of space reserved for the clock with date et al (using TClockEx there).

I will not and can not ever return to the horizontal taskbar. I also hate the grouping feature, I'd rather see what windows are open at any time.

Trinsec