Being able to move the taskbar vertically to the sides in Windows 11

RASK18 commented 1 year ago

Description of the new feature / enhancement

In W10 it is possible to put the taskbar vertically to the right of the screen, but W11 no longer has this functionality

It's been a year and a half since W11 was released and from the beginning a petition was created on the FeedbackHub requesting this functionality. As of today it already has 22,408 votes but they haven't made any update yet, it still has this generic response:

We'll be continuing to evolve Windows 11 and its features based on feedback like this, so thank you so much for taking the time to give us your feedback!

A year ago in a direct hinted that they had no intention of making this change, so I think it would be a good addition to the PowerToys

Scenario when this would be used?

I find it very useful to have the taskbar always visible but having it at the bottom takes up a lot of space, especially on my ultra-wide screen of 49'' (5120x1440) that occupies 3.6 times more than being in vertical! Having the taskbar on one side leaves the whole center of the screen free to play video games in windowed mode in perfect QHD (2560x1440 16:9), and being able to adjust a browser with a map or a guide on the sides easily thanks to the FancyZones

Supporting information

https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher This is another open source project that among other things has this function, but I would really like to see it here in the PowerToys

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/customize-taskbar-windows-11 Microsoft documentation

crutkas commented 1 year ago

Best spot for this feedback would be Windows Feedback hub

/feedbackhub

microsoft-github-policy-service[bot] commented 1 year ago

Hi! We've identified this issue that best is suited for Windows Feedback Hub. To do this on Windows, WinKey+F will bring it up!

bergamin commented 1 year ago

This would be useful even for normal widescreen. We don't work on 800:600 CRT monitors anymore. I will never understand why they removed this feature. It's even easier to implement with the new start menu than it was with Windows 10 one because it's floating and would look the same wherever it was triggered from

I understand PowerToys' position of choosing not to deal with this and ask people to ask in Feedback Hub, but this seems to be a very deliberate design choice by Microsoft. I really hope a new update will come to address this issue because this has potential to be as frustrating as Windows 8 start menu (although not everybody know they could change taskbar position in previous versions of Windows, so probably will have less pressure for change than the start menu had).

But honestly, I don't have high hopes that Microsoft will address this issue through the official channel and implement it for a future Windows build, and therefore, it would actually be a better spot to have this developed separately, either here or in a competitor program (which I'm pretty sure somebody probably already have done at this point)

Unless you guys have information we do not, since you guys are also Microsoft, and know this is being discussed internally, which would be great...

I've been using it on the left since 4:3 monitors started phasing out, even before I started using Ubuntu (which has that position as default). I still have a 4:3 1080p monitor I use sometimes and on that one I used taskbar at the bottom, while the laptop which is widescreen I used to the left

tolgabalci commented 1 year ago

Best spot for this feedback would be Windows Feedback hub

/feedbackhub

This is already the number one feedback item (divided among a few entries) for Windows 11 in the Windows Feedback hub for the lack of features provided. Main reason many people are still holding back on upgrading to Windows 11.

tolgabalci commented 8 months ago

I love the implementation provided on https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher. I think maybe PowerToys team can work with the ExplorerPatcher team to incorporate it here?

megahypercat commented 6 months ago

The windows team have made it clear that they won't fix this regression. Powertoys even has origins as the software bundle that adds highly requested features that MS didn't want to add to windows. I think it would be the perfect place, and I don't know any other group of developers that are so skilled and experienced with windows integration.

microsoft / PowerToys