Submitted 3 weeks ago by Stupendous@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/12/19/why-you-cant-move-windows-11-taskbar-like-windows-10/
Why would applications have to consider relayouting? Isn’t that entirely in the hand of the Windows taskbar?
It shows the window groups, windows, pops over previews of windows or tabs in a consistent style, presumably owned by the taskbar itself. At no point do applications themselves control their positions or size in the taskbar or the taskbar popovers.
If the taskbar position changes then the screen dimensions available to applications change - windows may need to be moved and resized. The applications themselves handle that. Of course, they need to be able to do this anyway so it’s not really an issue.
I didn’t even think of full-screen applications having to relayout. It’s not like every screen is the same size or dimension, either.
What this essentially means is that when the taskbar sits at the bottom, Windows and third-party apps know exactly how much horizontal space they have to work with.
Ah, so I assume they will remove support for any resolutions other than 1920x1080, since they need a consistent horizontal size, and that’s the most common.
More than that are they just ignoring windowing an application and resizing it to fit? You know, the namesake of their operating system?
Microsoft doesn’t have to compete very much. They’re not a monopoly, probably, but a strict definition. Apple exists. Linux exists and is better than the terminal hell the average person thinks about. But that’s not enough pressure to make microsoft actually try to appeal to customers. Most people are basically stuck.
We should break up all of these companies that are so big they can coast with shitty products for years.
It is lost technology… only the powerful ancients could accomplish such.
Or those familiar with the dark arts.
Dont care, its where the task bar should go, and I should be able to configure it.
Quote from Microsoft…“You will be happy in your work!”. /s
Is there no fix for this? I hate having the taskbar on my main monitor and ive been looking everywhere for a way to move it to another monitor. =/
wait, did they do away with the primary monitor designation?
isn’t that like the only thing that makes a “primary monitor” special - the taskbar? why can’t you just set another monitor as primary?
I don’t use win11, if it’s not obvious, lol
So i’m an idiot and you literally just solved my problem. I just set my other monitor as my main and the bar moved over lol. Thank you.
It’s still there.
Display settings > select monitor, check box “main display”
So Microsoft is hanging on the coat-tails of KDE, copying the enshitification from KDE3 to KDE4, 17 years later?
Windhawk and ExplorerPatcher will allow this while windows still resize correctly, so it’s a mystery to me as to why MSFT won’t do it.
Good explanation. They couldn’t checks notes be fucked
The taskbar items can’t have a constant width. Your whole taskbar layout changes when you change a tab in Firefox. You have to open a set of programs from right to left, because any other order will change the positions of the items you want to click.
When not combining windows, in Windows 10 you could order them to your preference and usefulness. Now, you’re stuck. Even when not combined, the items are combined in one block, and you can’t order them within the block either.
“vibe coding”
Pouring resources into it… Doesn’t almost every other os/distro have this option?
Maybe they are required to by the Americans with Disabilities Act?
Forced to by governments.
they will either go to windows 12 immediately after or trying to force win10 to 11 after the extended security updates end.
I was briefly a star at work when all of the terminals updated to Win 11. I was the only dude that knew how to move the start button back to the lower left corner.
Honestly, at this point Microsoft should do what Apple did, and build a completely new OS on top of the BSD kernel.
Or just Linux. Why even bother with BSD?
Because they would (for some reason) never open their source code.
When you buy a pc with mac os, you are usually stuck with it, at least for some time. When you buy a pc with windows, you can usually just uninstall it and install something else.
At least on a Mac we can choose bottom or left! Wild that Microsoft won’t give Windows users the option.
Of course you could say Mac is dorky with its always on menu bar at the top, but I quite like it. Even on my laptop with a notch it’s not terrible. And I like the status bar (right side of the menu bar).
And of course on Linux you can just have it any which way you want it.
I still generally prefer windowing on Windows 11 to macOS Tahoe. Since Sequoia (the last version) we’ve had basic windowing (and before that, free apps like Rectangle to shoehorn it in), but what Microsoft started with Aero Snap in Windows 7 has never been “the Mac way.” I think the old Mac users prefer a controlled chaos on their desktop. I like a more elegant setup. I like how I have Windows set up at work. It doesn’t quite work as well on Mac, to try to do the same thing, but I wouldn’t trade my Mac for something like my work PC, even if it could play more games.
Menu bar at the top at least makes some sense - it’s easier to mouse to it, since you can’t go too far. Having menus per-window like Linux, or like Windows used to before big ugly ribbons became the thing, is easier to overshoot. (Which is why I always open my menu bars by pressing ‘alt’ with my left thumb, and then using the keyboard shortcuts that are helpfully underlined. Window likes to hide those from you now since they’re ‘ugly’, and also makes you mouse over the pretty icons to get the tooltip that tells you what they are, which is just a PITA. Pretty != usable.)
Mac OS has had the menu at the top since before it was a multitasking OS. They had them there on the first Mac I ever used, a Mac Classic 2 back in 1991 or so, and it was probably like that before then too. It’s not like they’ve been ‘innovating’ that particular feature and annoying their users.
To be clear, the Macintosh in 1984 had the menu bar. Amiga had it, too. Now, the dock — that came later. I remember System 7 or Mac OS 8 had a zip-tie pull-out thingy on the left (and Microsoft 2000 copied it). I think the actual Dock as we know it now came in OS X. And there were clones (e.g. AquaDock) until Apple started handing out C&Ds and lawsuits. I tried a couple (on Windows), none of them were great.
Just ask ai to do it?
“You will own nothing and you’ll be happy”
Simple regedit used to fix this, but then stuff started to not work quite right as it got updated, and now I don’t think that regedit works anymore.
Another thing blowing my mind is the complete lack of screen brightness support. World oot on a few Linux distros I found. My keyboard has the keys, let me dim my damn main screen with those instead of the finicky buttons on the screen
Time to install Linux. I’m busy setting up family with Mint this holiday season to keep their rarely used devices alive.
I watched a YouTube video by Dave Plummer about why you can’t move the taskbar and it made more sense than whatever. this link is that I’m not clicking on
NutWrench@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Microsoft wants to use the Taskbar for advertising. They can’t do that if users can move it around or hide it.