windows 7 - Is there any way to hide taskbar labels and not combine taskbar buttons?

There are three options for customizing taskbar buttons in Windows 7:

1. Always combine, hide labels


2. Combine when taskbar is full


3. Never combine

Is there any way to hide labels and not combine taskbar buttons? Or even better, to exclude only certain applications from combining?

My main problem is that I switch a lot between two instances of a single application, and having to hover over combined icon and then choosing the correct one. Alt-Tabbing is not a good alternative when I'm switching between more than three applications; clicking on taskbar only once is what I'm looking for.

Answer

It's something of a hack job, but this might do the trick! It requires doing a bit of registry editing to shrink the taskbar icons so that the labels auto-hide.

Set taskbar options

1. Open Taskbar properties.


2. In the "Taskbar Appearance" group, change the "Taskbar Button" option to "Never combine" if you don't want stacking.

Adding/editing the registry entry

1. Press Windows Key + R to open the run command


2. Type int "regedit" (without quotes) and press OK


3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Control Panel -> Desktop -> WindowMetrics


4. Find the "MinWidth" entry.


5. If it is not there, right click on an empty space and select New -> String Value. Name this entry "MinWidth" (without quotes)


6. Double click on the MinWidth entry. If you want just the buttons to show, set this to 38 if you're using small buttons, 52 if you're using large buttons (or 54 in Windows 8). Otherwise any value above 38 will work. If you set a value below 38, the buttons will behave oddly. If your main display (on Windows 8.1 or later) has non-standard DPI (e.g. it's Retina or 4k display) you might need to multiply these numbers by the factor of 1.25, 1.5 or 2. Otherwise buttons will shrink / animate incorrectly.


7. Log off and log back in or restart to see the changes.

Deleting/Uninstalling

1. Press Windows Key + R to open the run command


2. Type int "regedit" (without quotes) and press OK


3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Control Panel -> Desktop -> WindowMetrics


4. Find the "MinWidth" entry and delete it.


5. Log off and log back in or restart to see the changes.