taskbar

Windhawk — an open-source “mod marketplace” for Windows — has become the go-to solution for users who want to un-shackle Windows 11’s restrictive taskbar and restore the look, behavior, and useful shortcuts that Microsoft removed or limited. In short: if you’ve been annoyed by the simplified...

Microsoft is rolling AI agents into the Windows 11 taskbar in the latest Insider preview, introducing visible, monitorable agent tasks, a developer-facing Agent Launchers framework, and a new Ask Copilot taskbar experience — all delivered as opt‑in previews in build 26220.7523 for Insiders in...

Every fresh Windows 11 installation ships with a grab bag of first‑party apps—some genuinely useful, some quietly redundant, and a handful that feel like marketing dressed up as convenience—and ZDNet’s pragmatic “11 I keep / 11 I ditch” checklist is one of the clearest, user‑centric guides for...

Windows 11 ships with a slick, modern coat of paint—and with it a surprising amount of visual noise that can puncture concentration minutes after first boot. The three low-friction hacks that follow — declutter the taskbar, disable built-in ads and recommendations, and hide or remove desktop...

Microsoft has quietly restored the long-missed option to use smaller taskbar icons in Windows 11 — but with a distinctly modern twist: the icons can now scale down independently while the taskbar itself keeps its original height, and you can choose whether this happens all the time, only when...

Windows has quietly allowed a thriving ecosystem of third‑party tools to pick up the slack where Microsoft chose simplicity over flexibility, and nowhere is that tension more visible than the taskbar — a small strip of UI that, for power users, defines the efficiency of their entire workflow...

Windows 11’s future should be defined by practical fixes that improve everyday productivity, not just another round of Copilot polishing — here are five immediate features Microsoft should prioritize, how to enable or approximate them today, and why these changes matter for both home users and...

Customize Taskbar for Productivity: Pins, Toolbars & Notification Tweaks Difficulty: Intermediate | Time Required: 15 minutes If your desktop feels like clutter, you miss quick ways to launch apps, access folders, or manage notifications. A well-tuned taskbar can shave seconds off everyday...

Windows 11 includes a one-click, officially supported way to restore the classic left-aligned taskbar icons — but that simple fix is not the same as moving the entire taskbar to the left edge of the screen, and the difference matters for safety, stability, and what Microsoft actually supports...

Windows 11’s taskbar is no longer a static band of icons — it’s a tunable productivity surface that can be pared down to near-invisibility or loaded with every visual cue and quick-action a power user could want. The five practical taskbar tricks summarized in the Pocket‑lint piece are a concise...

God Mode is less drama and more efficiency: a decades‑old Explorer shell trick that consolidates Windows’ scattered controls into a single, searchable “All Tasks” view — and when pinned smartly it can turn the Windows taskbar into a one‑click admin console. Background / Overview Windows has...

Microsoft’s push to make Windows 11 an “agentic” operating system took a visible step forward this week as Copilot and new AI agents were shown moving from background concept to taskbar-first features that users — and attackers — will watch closely. Background: the shift to an agentic Windows...

Windows 11’s taskbar is more capable than it looks — and a few overlooked tricks can make it feel genuinely productive again. The headline: while Windows 11 removed some legacy customization and locked down others, the taskbar still hides practical features that speed everyday workflows. You can...

Microsoft has quietly restored one of the simplest — and most requested — taskbar niceties to Windows 11: the ability to display your battery percentage directly on the taskbar, alongside a set of redesigned, color-coded battery icons that make charge state readable at a glance. Background...

Windows 10’s Start menu design still solves a practical problem Microsoft hasn’t fully recreated in Windows 11, and a handful of community tools let you restore that familiarity — most notably ExplorerPatcher, a free, actively developed utility that can bring the Windows 10 Start menu and much...

Windhawk’s modular mods ecosystem is doing more than dressing up Windows—it’s quietly restoring missing functionality, smoothing rough edges, and giving power users surgical control over the Start menu, Taskbar, File Explorer and more, and the nine community‑favorite mods below represent the...

Microsoft’s Copilot push has collided with two of tech’s loudest personalities — and it’s exposed a deeper rift between what many Windows users want from the desktop and what Microsoft seems determined to ship. Fortnite creator Tim Sweeney reportedly taunted Microsoft’s Copilot campaign by...

Microsoft has quietly updated Windows 11’s taskbar battery indicator so it finally tells you useful information at a glance: the icon is now color-aware and you can choose to show an exact battery percentage in the system tray. This isn’t a flashy new AI feature or a hardware tweak — it’s a...

Windows 11’s audio quick controls are a small, frequent friction point that adds up: the taskbar volume slider hides the active device name and forces extra clicks to switch outputs, and the Settings layout exposes long lists of audio endpoints that clutter the workflow. You can’t change the OS...

Windows 11’s latest Insider preview is more than cosmetic tinkering — Build 26220.7051 (distributed as KB5067115) pushes Copilot out of the sidebar and into the taskbar with an opt‑in “Ask Copilot” pill that blends local Windows Search results with multimodal generative assistance. This is a...