Another annoying taskbar issue

My taskbar is set to the left side of my screen, blended in with the windows icon. I have several shortcuts to files there, plus a few apps like calculator and notepad.

When I open a file, the taskbar button opens to the right side of the icons.. (that's good)
But when I open an app, the taskbar button opens in place and pushes the other icons over to the right to make room for it. (that's bad)

How do I stop this annoying behavior? I do not ever want my taskbar icons to move. Jeez, who designed this? Could you imagine having the keys on your keyboard move around as you use them?

are you stating that when you open an app the current instance is stacked where the icon is pinned?

if so, Settings > Personalization > Taskbar
Set Combine to Never

dacrone said:

are you stating that when you open an app the current instance is stacked where the icon is pinned?

if so, Settings > Personalization > Taskbar
Set Combine to Never

View attachment 151152

Click to expand...

That is exactly what I'm talking about.. But I set it to NEVER the day I installed Win11. Both settings are set to NEVER.
The behavior is strange. If I open one of the shortcuts I created, the shortcut to whatever file it is will open to the right of the taskbar icons. But if the icon is a program/app, then it opens in place and pushes the other icons to the right.

Here's a screenshot. I opened the calculator app and it pushed the other icons to the right.

doesnt work for uwp (that i am aware of). if you want, i can make AHK scripts to launch whatever uwp apps you want and make them EXEs with the right Icons. you can pin those and then when the uwp launches it will be to the right like everything else...

Combine and Hide Labels not an option?

Murby said:

When I open a file, the taskbar button opens to the right side of the icons.. (that's good)
But when I open an app, the taskbar button opens in place and pushes the other icons over to the right to make room for it. (that's bad)

Click to expand...

This has been reported before.
I do not think there is a solution.

My own experiments have shown me that the two different behaviours when
1 opening files, and
2 opening apps
are due to idiosyncratic, undeclared behaviour of the individual applications / Windows components involved.
There is no consistent pattern to the differences in behaviour that might steer you towards a solution.
For example,
- I click on a Taskbar icon for one particular Excel file and the icon expands into the wide running-application Taskbar indicator yet remains in the same position.
- I click on a Taskbar icon for a different Excel file and the icon remains the same whilst the wide running-application Taskbar indicator is to the right of all others.


All the best,
Denis

Try Combine taskbar buttons and hide labels to always. That's what works here.

I had exactly same issue. Only option what worked was using StartAllBack: Taskbar settings -> combine options -> use last option.

You can use both of these together:

• Disable grouping on the taskbar - Windhawk
• Taskbar Labels for Windows 11 - Windhawk