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I have an issue with Windows 11 and its already opened taskbar programs. By clicking the icon the program's window is not brought to the front if the particular program has multiple instances/windows open. If it has only 1, then it works. If multiple, nothing basically happens and I have to Alt + Tab to bring it to the front.

I have

  1. Upgraded Windows 11 from Windows 10 (not a fresh install)
  2. Installed Explorer patcher
  3. Uninstalled Explorer patcher when it stopped working after a system update
  4. Noticed this issue.

How to make the taskbar work so that by clicking the icon on the taskbar the particular program would be brought to the front even if it has multiple instances open?

Click does not bring File explorer on front

Pic 1. If a program e.g. File explorer has more than 1 instance already open, clicking it on the taskbar does nothing

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  • do you have any third party applications which are related to the taskbar? I get this same problem and restarting DisplayFusion usually solves it. However I do not know if DisplayFusion is causing it, or if restarting it fixes an underlying other issue
    – Shevek
    Commented Mar 17, 2023 at 9:18
  • Is the taskbar set to be Always On Top? Does clicking on an empty spot in the taskbar help?
    – harrymc
    Commented Mar 17, 2023 at 9:28
  • do you have any third party applications which are related to the taskbar? I had this github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher but uninstalled it. Could it have broken it? Is the taskbar set to be Always On Top? Yes it is. Clicking an empty spot doesn't help, unfortunately.
    – anmatika
    Commented Mar 18, 2023 at 6:24
  • Do you have multiple instances/windows of the apps that have issues open? Does explorer.exe restart help when it happens?
    – Destroy666
    Commented Mar 18, 2023 at 18:20
  • Do you have multiple instances/windows of the apps that have issues open? Yes! Indeed, if multiple instances of a particular program are open it fails to bring it to the front, if only 1, it works. Does explorer.exe restart help when it happens? Unfortunately, that won't help, the problem persists.
    – anmatika
    Commented Mar 19, 2023 at 5:43

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Answering to my own question. It turned out that having the taskbar on the top was causing the issue. Had to bring it back to the default position on the bottom and the problem was fixed. Now hovering on the programs in the taskbar would show the popup.

You can bring the taskbar back to the bottom by changing the value from 01 to 03 in the registry in Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects3 as in the image below.

enter image description here

It would be nice to have the taskbar at the top, but apparently, it is not properly supported in Win 11.

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This looks like an intentional behavior by Microsoft. It's been like this in Windows from at least 9 years ago. Please see Change behavior of windows taskbar when switching programs. Windows 11 makes it apparent by force grouping taskbar icons and this is the exact behavior as the topic I mentioned. Looking at the answer attached screenshot, I assume it was Windows 7. Unfortunately, Windows 11 doesn't allow you to ungroup taskbar icons unless you are using Insider build on 'Dev' channel.

I am using vanilla Windows 11 on stable release, no Explorer Patcher installed.

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