The changes introduced by Microsoft in the Windows 11 taskbar have not been well received by many users. If this is our case, we show you how to configure it, adding or removing applications, hiding it, moving icons or customizing its position.

Pin and remove icons on the taskbar

With the advent of Windows 11, Microsoft has introduced a revamped Start menu and taskbar. Program icons and the Start button are now displayed in the center of the bar instead of on the left. Alongside them are the search icons, widgets, task view, and chat that appear by default when you run the operating system for the first time.

One of the sections that users will miss the most is that this taskbar is no longer as configurable as the one in Windows 10 . Gone is the old familiar Start menu with its configurable Live Tiles. The search box is no longer inside the bar, since to access it it will be necessary to first click on the Start menu, so it requires an additional step.

In addition, the bar is now permanently fixed to the bottom of the screen, since now, at least from the Settings menu, it does not allow it to be moved to the top or to any side

Pin the position of an app

If we want to anchor and pin any application to the taskbar at the bottom, we will have several methods to do so.

On the one hand, if the application is running, its icon will appear in the bar with a line below , which will indicate that it is active. If we want its icon to remain permanently once we have closed the program, we can right-click on the icon. This will bring up a small menu where we will select “Pin to taskbar”.

In the event that an application is running, we can also pin it to the bar if its icon is on the desktop . To do this, it will only be necessary to click on it with the right mouse button to bring up a context menu where we will click on Show more options or directly press the keyboard shortcut “Shift + F10”. This will bring up an expanded menu where we will select the “Pin to taskbar” option.

One last option would be to click on the Start icon and click on the “All applications” button. Later we click with the right mouse button on the application that we want. Next, we select “More” and then the option to “Pin to taskbar” will appear.

Delete icons

In general, most of the icons are easy to remove, although we must take into account that some require more effort, and others, such as the Start menu, are immovable. Others in changes cannot be deleted, but it can be hidden.

To remove an application from the bar, simply right-click on its icon, so that a small drop-down menu appears where we must select the “Unpin from the taskbar” option.

Those icons that cannot be removed can be hidden, for which we must right-click on the taskbar. Then select “Taskbar Settings”. Alternatively, we can access it by pressing “Windows + I” to enter the “Settings” menu and click on “Personalization and Taskbar”.

Once on the new screen we can deactivate any of the “Search”, “Preview”, “Widgets” or “Chat” icons, so that they are automatically hidden. We can also hide the icons that appear in the right corner of the bar such as “Pen Menu”, “Touch Keyboard” and “Virtual Touch Panel”.

Customize the position of the bar

By default, the Windows 11 taskbar cannot be moved up, left or right, since Microsoft, contrary to what happened in Windows 10, does not easily allow this change. However, it is possible to make those changes through a registry tweak.

This will require downloading a script called TaskBarLayout.bat from this GitHub link. Later we execute it, and it will ask us to select an election. To do this we use the number keys from 1 to 4 to move the bar to the left, right, up and down positions respectively. Of course, we must bear in mind that when we move it to the left or right, the icons on the bar will disappear.

In this way, we can use this simple and effective command line tool to change the position of the bar in Windows 11. Of course, we must use this adjustment at the own risk of each user.

hide the bar

In addition, we can, as was the case in Windows 10, we will also be able to hide the taskbar so that it is not permanently visible, which allows us to take advantage of the entire front. To do this, in the “Alignment of the taskbar” section, we must click on the “Automatically hide the taskbar” box.

Once this is done, the bar will hide at the bottom of the screen, and you will have to move the cursor to make it appear again. Thus, we get it to only be displayed when we are really going to use some of its elements.

Taskbar corner overflow

Under this strange name we find the function that allows you to display icons on the right side of the screen , such as the time and date, battery status, volume level and Wi-Fi status, among others. The small pop-up menu when we click on the arrow pointing up, which is to the left of these icons, is called an overflow.

To do this, from the taskbar customization menu, we display the “Taskbar corner overflow” section. From this section we can indicate which icons can appear on the right side of the bar (Dropbox is the most common) by activating it in the menu. While those that are shown disabled will appear in the overflow menu.

Move icons left

If we have previously used Windows 10 or earlier versions, we will be used to finding the Start menu button at the bottom left of the screen . If we want to move the icons so that they appear again on the left side, we can do it from the Configuration section of the taskbar.

Here we must select the “Behavior of the taskbar” section. This will display a small menu where we find the option “Taskbar Alignment” and clicking on the button on the right offers us the option to choose Left instead of center. When closing the window, we will see how the icons on the bar next to the Start menu have been moved to the left of the screen.

Change the size of the icons

Windows 11 does not offer in its configuration section the possibility of changing the default size of the icons that appear in the bar, so in order to do so, it will be necessary to make a simple adjustment in the Registry Editor. Similarly, we can choose to change the scale within the Settings menu.

From Registry Editor

Before we begin, we must know that changing the size of the icons also implies that the taskbar changes size in the same proportion, in order to accommodate larger or smaller icons.

To do this, we are going to press the keyboard shortcut “Windows + R” which will open the “Run” command. Here we write regedit and press Enter or the OK button. Once the Registry Editor appears, we navigate to the following address:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER / Software / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion / Explorer /Advanced

Once here, on the right side we create a new value. We will do this by right-clicking on an empty spot, selecting New, and then clicking DWORD (32-bit) Value and naming it TaskbarSi .

Now we double click on the TaskbarSi value and configure it with 0 if we want small icons, 1 for medium 2 and 3 for large icons, within its Value section. It only remains to click OK to save the changes and restart the computer.

Use display scale

In this case we must know that, if we change the display scale from the “Settings” section, not only does the size of all the icons change (including those that are not in the bar), but so will the text ( in all parts), as well as other elements.

To do this we must click with the right mouse button on an empty place on the desktop. This will open a context menu where we will select the “Display Settings” option. We can also access from “Configuration2, clicking on “System2 and “Display page”.

Now on the right side, we find the “Scale” section. Here we select a scale by clicking on the drop-down box for it to apply. Its default value is 100% and it is recommended to use the one recommended by Windows 11.