Taskbar grouping came about upon the release of Windows XP. Love it or hate it, the idea behind it was to de-clutter the taskbar by condensing similar application windows into one container on the taskbar. Users with low resolution displays that were limited in the amount of “applications” they could fit on their taskbar receive the greatest value from this feature. By default, Grouping only occurs when the taskbar becomes “full.” Now that most have high resolution displays, Grouping occurs less and less. However, if the idea helps you stay organized and efficient – it’s possible to force Grouping.
First, changing this setting involves going into the Registry with regedit. Normal warnings apply: making changes to the registry may cause stability problems, blue screens, kill puppies – so proceed at your own peril. While I could include a pre-made registry file to apply to make this process super simple, I don’t think that applying registry files blindly is a wise thing from a security perspective. At least by following my direction you have the opportunity to see what is being changed and why.
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Launch regedit by clicking Start then Run and typing regedit.
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Navigate down the left side tree: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced
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Right click in the right pane and create a new DWORD (32-bit) value called TaskbarGroupSize.
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Modifying TaskbarGroupSize will control the number of similar windows to be grouped together. A value of O will disable the feature entirely. Here I’ve set it to 2.
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With the registry change out of the way you must now enable the functionality. To do this right click on the Taskbar and choose Properties.
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Look for the option Group similar taskbar buttons. If it is already checked, uncheck and click Apply. Re-check and click Apply a second time. Finally, click OK.
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