Taskbar overflow menu - only 17 active icons will show now...

This machine seems to have recently updated and now there is a limit to how many active icons are visible in the taskbar. My average is 22 active icons and now anything over 17 gets hidden in the taskbar overflow menu. I am so spoiled that I signed up for an account here to ask for help. I really hope I can go back to being able to see all the active icons in the task bar, no matter how many are open.

I have checked and changed as many settings as I can find, and the taskbar overflow menu is still present when I have more than 17 active icons in the taskbar.

I haven't found any recent posts in any forums or in MS support and am desperate to find out whether this can be changed back to having all the active icons visible all the time.
Please help.
Thank you.
Mic.

Plus, I forgot to mention, several times over the last couple of days it seems that windows explorer gets overwhelmed and the response time moving between open icons slows and then seems to reset itself - for the lack of a better description - and the file explorer tabs/icons are closed after the task bar briefly disappears and the icons are not in the same order they started out in when it comes back.
Thank you for any help you can offer.

Windows 11, HP desktop PC, 2 screens, never had this behavior until this week when I think a very recent update happened.

I'm such forum noob, with all these posts, hahaha.

mic said:

Windows 11, HP desktop PC, 2 screens, never had this behavior until this week when I think a very recent update happened.

I'm such forum noob, with all these posts, hahaha.

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Hi mic, welcome to the Eleven Forums.
You post what you need to post to get your issue across
There is possibly someone who can solve this for you, but I am wondering if it wouldn’t help to know what individual processes are, that aren’t showing. And is it always the same tasks/processes that aren’t showing?
Have you checked Personalisation > Taskbar > Other system Tray icons ?

Have you ever tried ExplorerPatcher? Someone here might be able to tell you if it can tweak what you need.

I forgot to add….wow. 22 active taskbar icons

antspants said:

Hi mic, welcome to the Eleven Forums.
You post what you need to post to get your issue across
There is possibly someone who can solve this for you, but I am wondering if it wouldn’t help to know what individual processes are, that aren’t showing. And is it always the same tasks/processes that aren’t showing?
Have you checked Personalisation > Taskbar > Other system Tray icons ?

Have you ever tried ExplorerPatcher? Someone here might be able to tell you if it can tweak what you need.

Click to expand...

Hello.
Thank you for your fast response.
The processes that are not showing are just the ones that were last opened, or the ones on the far-right end of the pinned to the task bar icons. Once beyond 17 open, whatever gets opened does not show in the task bar, they are just added to the Taskbar overflow menu.

These are the taskbar icons, the system tray icons are represented by an up-arrow that expands the window showing the hidden system tray icons. The system tray is not influencing the task bar functionality I am focused on right now. The system tray, clock, speaker, etc are unchanged in funtion and visibility.

I'm reluctant to try the ExplorerPatcher but will research it and learn more soon.
Thank you.

mic said:

Hello.
Thank you for your fast response.
The processes that are not showing are just the ones that were last opened, or the ones on the far-right end of the pinned to the task bar icons. Once beyond 17 open, whatever gets opened does not show in the task bar, they are just added to the Taskbar overflow menu.

These are the taskbar icons, the system tray icons are represented by an up-arrow that expands the window showing the hidden system tray icons. The system tray is not influencing the task bar functionality I am focused on right now. The system tray, clock, speaker, etc are unchanged in funtion and visibility.

I'm reluctant to try the ExplorerPatcher but will research it and learn more soon.
Thank you.

Click to expand...

Explorer Patcher is un intrusive really, and as far a I remember, if you uninstall it, it will remove changes you made. It could be different now, I am not sure.

This is a long thread, if you’re interested I’d stat at the end.

antspants said:

Explorer Patcher is un intrusive really, and as far a I remember, if you uninstall it, it will remove changes you made. It could be different now, I am not sure.

This is a long thread, if you’re interested I’d stat at the end.

New Version of ExplorerPatcher

I believe there is a new version of ExplorerPatcher released today it is version 22000.258.30.2 It has more options in the settings section

www.elevenforum.com

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I've glanced through this and still need to learn more.

As an update, what I really need is to disable the taskbar overflow menu. I don't need it, I don't want it. I have too many apps/icons - whatever you want to call them - open all day and am slowed down significantly by having to look for what I know is open.

It might be that Windows Explorer restarts itself as a mutually exclusive problem, but more importantly I want to disable the taskbar overflow menu.

The taskbar overflow menu has only been functional for less than a week, so I am guessing it is part of the most recent update.

Thank you for any insights so far. I will post an update after learning more about this.

Unbelievable man!
Thread after thread after thread after thread on issues due to poor design on MS's part!

Edwin said:

Unbelievable man!
Thread after thread after thread after thread on issues due to poor design on MS's part!

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Thanks for letting me know I'm not the only one!!! I just haven't had time to do much more than make this thread.

I'll go looking for the other threads asap!

15.6" Laptop screen at 125% dpi, 35 icons before overflow! StartAllBack Windows 7 style.

@Edwin
Aren't those your regular program-lanching icons? I thought I understood OP to mean he had 22 programs OPEN, with icons in the taskbar because the programs ARE open. Thus, "active icons." My guess. Boggles me to think why anyone would need 22 programs open at the same time.

Wisewiz said:

@Edwin
Aren't those your regular program-lanching icons? I thought I understood OP to mean he had 22 programs OPEN, with icons in the taskbar because the programs ARE open. Thus, "active icons." My guess. Boggles me to think why anyone would need 22 programs open at the same time.

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Edwin:
The other day I had very little time and a search of this forum for "taskbar overflow menu" didn't return as many results as I would expect. Yes, this is only regarding the taskbar overflow menu, not anything else in the taskbar. Edwin, please help explain how you have so much open, presuming your shared image of your taskbar has programs running like I'm talking about.
I woudn't think there is much difference between my PC and your laptop Windows 11-wise, please share how you don't have, or can disable the taskbar overflow menu.
Wisewiz -
I have about 10 programs pinned to the taskbar, mostly microsoft related, and usually have more than one instance of each program needed and running during the day. Nothing complex, just many things open that I use often, or work between during the day. I can have many instances of our client database open during the day which add up quickly.
Thanks for responding, hopefully the ability to disable or turn off the taskbar overflow menu will be available soon.
Mic.

Wisewiz said:

Aren't those your regular program-lanching icons?

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No. They are all newly opened instances of individual programs.

mic said:

Edwin, please help explain how you have so much open

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I use StartAllBack in Windows 7 mode..., it allows me to have 35 icons on the Taskbar before it goes into overflow mode.

@Edwin I ain't got no dogs in this hunt, but my curiosity is killing me. 35 open apps (not counting extra browser and explorer tabs.) How much of your resources does a load like that use?

glasskuter said:

@Edwin I ain't got no dogs in this hunt, but my curiosity is killing me. 35 open apps (not counting extra browser and explorer tabs.) How much of your resources does a load like that use?

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Uh..., I dunno, I didn't check!

I can do 38 excluding the start menu and there are 6 pinned items that are not opened as the pinned items do count as far as the taskbar overflow is concerned. 15" 3840x2160 4K UltraHD Dell XPS 15 9570 Signature Edition Notebook. I normally keep 35 things which includes pinned items that are unopened. A lot has to do with resolution and I have it on 150% scaling.


CPU is 6% and 19GB out of 32GB of RAM is used.