Windows 10: Windows Taskbar Behaviour Bug- Overflow Menu

Hi, This is my taskbar in a normal state.I need to open several PowerPoint docs to work on at once. Having opened them, it triggers the overflow menu area as expected indicated by three dots. However, it totally collapses the taskbar down to only appear on the left side of the screen:If I swap to another app hidden in the overflow area it makes no difference. Why do I suddenly get all this dead space on the right side of the taskbar, and how can I fix it? I've obviously tried restarts/relaunching Windows etc.Cheers

:)

 

How do I disable the taskbar overflow menu (taskbar ...)

Hello Owen,

You can use an option in the tutorial below to turn off the taskbar overflow menu.

Turn On or Off Hidden Icon Menu on Taskbar System Tray in Windows 11

However, you will still need to turn on apps like below to show them on the taskbar notification area instead of in the turned off overflow menu.

Hide or Show System Tray Icons in Taskbar Corner Overflow Menu in Windows 11

 

How do I disable the taskbar overflow menu (taskbar ...)

Sorry, I was thinking of the taskbar corner overflow menu for notification icons instead.

I'm not aware of a way to disable the taskbar overflow menu without some unknown 3rd party app like "Classic Shell" to make it more like Windows 10.

 

How do I disable the taskbar overflow menu (taskbar ...)

Hi Shawn, your suggestion turns off the hidden icon menu button for the system tray. Disabling the hidden icon menu does not affect the taskbar overflow menu or the layout of the task icons on the task bar. I've attached a screen clip of my taskbar. I routinely have 10 or 15 different windows broken out on the taskbar while I'm working. Being able to see these tasks simultaneously is critical to help keep my work structured and organized.

In the screen clip I have about 22 separate windows open. You can see that the taskbar overflow menu function consolidated most of my apps into an isolated group and left about 50% of my taskbar empty and wasted. This is not the desired behavior. I will point out that I have my taskbar alignment set to the left. I have multiple displays with taskbar apps shown on "All taskbars" and the "Combine taskbar" options both set to "Never." Even with only 10-15 apps on the taskbar there is still an unnecessary gap of wasted space between the system tray and the running tasks.

My Windows 10 desktop can display 31 separate running application icons using the same monitor with the same resolution before it creates a second row of running tasks. It also does this with no wasted space. I can also expand that taskbar upward if i want to show both rows simultaneously. I would greatly appreciate a way to disable this taskbar overflow menu so i can fully utilize my taskbar.