Personalization Change Taskbar Preview Mode to List or Thumbnail in Windows 11


Taskbar_banner.webp

This tutorial will show you how to have taskbar previews show as a list or thumbnail for your account in Windows 11.

Starting with Windows 11 build 26340.9577 (Experimental 26H2) for Insiders, Microsoft has added a hidden Show taskbar previews as setting to have taskbar previews show in list view or as a thumbnail.

When you hover the pointer over an icon on the taskbar for an open window, its taskbar preview will show as a thumbnail by default. If you have more than 20 windows opened for an app, their taskbar previews will automatically change to show as a list.

You can change taskbar previews to show as a list by default instead.

If you don't have the Show taskbar previews as setting in the build above yet and would like to try it now, then you can use the vivetool command below to enable this feature.

vivetool.exe /enable /id:62932453




Contents

  • Option One: Change Taskbar Preview Mode to List or Thumbnail in Settings
  • Option Two: Change Taskbar Preview Mode to List or Thumbnail using REG file


EXAMPLE: Show taskbar previews as list or thumbnail

list_taskbar_previews.webp
thumbnail_taskbar_previews.webp





Option One

Change Taskbar Preview Mode to List or Thumbnail in Settings


1 Open Settings (WIn+I).

2 Click/tap on Personalization on the left side, and click/tap on Taskbar on the right side. (see screenshot below)


Taskbar_preview_mode-1.webp

3 Under Taskbar behaviors, select Thumbnail (default) or List for what you want in the Show taskbar previews as drop menu. (see screenshot below

Taskbar_preview_mode-2.webp

4 You can now close Settings if you like.




Option Two

Change Taskbar Preview Mode to List or Thumbnail using REG file


1 Do step 2 (thumbnail) or step 3 (list) below for how you want taskbar previews to show as.

2 Show Taskbar Previews as Thumbnail

This is the default setting.


A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.​

Show_taskbar_previews_as_thumbnail.reg​


(Contents of REG file for reference)
Code:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"TaskbarPreviewMode"=dword:00000000

3 Show Taskbar Previews as List

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 6 below.​

Show_taskbar_previews_as_list.reg​


(Contents of REG file for reference)
Code:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"TaskbarPreviewMode"=dword:00000001

4 Save the .reg file to your desktop.

5 If you have Smart App Control turned on, you will need to unblock the downloaded REG file.

6 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

7 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

8 You can now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.


That's it,
Shawn Brink
 

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