Windows 11 Taskbar

Copper Contributor

When I switch to the smallest taskbar in Windows 11 using registry editor Computer\HKEY_CURRENTUSER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced I choose   "0" value in REG_DWORD  in TaskbarSI. The date is displayed below the  clock and half of it is cut off horizontally. You only see the top half of the digits. The only way I can see it all is to change the DWORD value to 1. This makes the taskbar too wide. Any ideas or is this still to come? Can I remove the date altogether.

27 Replies
While editing the registry to tweak settings works, i think what you are asking if for is for more options around the customisation to for example, hide the clock, change the size etc. Have you logged a request via feedback hub - this is the main place MSFT review feedback on the UI and experience of Windows 11 while its in development.

@LesBryce 

I have the same issue. Tried change TaskbarSI from 0 to 1 and back with no result

The taskbar isn't meant to be small or large so that's why when the taskbar is made smaller in size the clock is displayed awkward. Yes, true, that one can registry edit the taskbar to be smaller or larger but it either was an unfinished option Microsoft opted not to continue with or it's possible to be done but because of the coding of Windows 11 the sizing doesn't work properly and Microsoft optioned to not work on it or continue to work on it. There could be other reasons why it can be done too (left over code from Windows 10, who knows the reason why it can sort of be done in registry edit but not in settings). In other words, if Microsoft wanted it to be officially changeable they would of put an option like a toggle switch in the taskbar settings to make the taskbar smaller or larger without having to back door it with a registry edit. Maybe in future builds we'll see this option in Windows 11, but into then registry edits like making taskbar smaller or larger or moving taskbar to the top of screen is just an unofficial way of using these options thus can have problems, issues, bugs, unstableness. It's why it's not advice to use registry edit for such stuff. I tried for the experiment of it the taskbar larger, smaller, top of screen registry edit on one of my older computers that I didn't care if it crashed and while the options did work they came with unstableness and features that didn't properly work (such as registry editing the taskbar to be on the right or left of screen causes Windows Explorer to currently crash in a loop).

@Anthony , Thanks.

Fine for me however when I first updated from W10 with keeping applications and files this awkward clock panel was just as it was (with only clock showing). I only created TaskbarSI in Registry with value 0. When I installed clean W11 this problem appeared. And doing the same here did not work.

...and I think the taskbar does meant to be large or small. the user has the right to chose how does his OS look
I tried the same thing
The Windows 10 small taskbar also gave small icons the same size as the system tray ones and just the time but now (on my my 1920 x 1080 14" screen) since I do not have the option to change the size the task bar is about twice the height it needs to be.

The fact that there is a registry option says it was/is an intended option, it's just not 100% ready, so it wasn't added to the UI yet. if it wasn't going to be an option to adjust the taskbar size, it would be a private variable in the programing.

I to have used this registry edit, and have searched for a way to remove the date from the clock, mousing over the time has always given the date for as long as I can remember, retaining the mouse over function, and the date with the clock is redundant.

I'd assume, when they add the option to change the taskbar size, they will add a show/hide date from system tray area.

Hi everyone. Since there is no coherent answer from MS, I have just used 3rd party interface soft and voila - the clock appeared as you wanted.. 

vasmarine_0-1638070831038.png

 

Which software did you use ? I really want make the bar look like that 🙃

@vasmarine What are you using? I use ElevenClock to display the clock on my second monitor, I wouldn't want something that is much more resource intensive than that, it has a 38mb memory footprint, and a 0.2% to 0.8% cpu usage. I'm not interested in resource hogs like stardock (just an example) and such.

StartAllBack. Now also for W11. ...may MS forgive me that sin
Thanks for sharing. it does more than I'd want it too, but it's good to know it's there!

@SaiMorphX 

Here's another option worth considering, especially if you want the taskbar to just look like it did in Windows 10.

 

1. Open regedit.exe
2. Go to:
     HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

3. Click on Advanced

4. Find REG_DWORD titled TaskbarSmallIcons and set it to "1" (default is "0")

5. Then install ExplorerPatcher from GitHub:

https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases/latest/download/ep_setup.exe


With those 5 steps I was able to finally get the taskbar in Windows 11 to look small, just like Win10.  And also hide the annoying date next to the clock (which made the taskbar too wide) and without any tray icons looking truncated!  Plus it even enabled me to get my QuickLaunch toolbar back.  For extra credit, I installed OpenShell (https://open-shell.github.io/Open-Shell-Menu/) for a few of my older users who don't do well without their Win7 Start menu.

 

It's amazing how Microsoft thinks it's okay to tick off its customers at every version by forcing them to learn a new UI. It's fine if they want the default UI to look more like MacOS, but geez at least provide options so people can configure it back to their liking. Most of the so-called "hacks" that return Windows to a state of comfortableness simply make changes to keys that are already in the registry.

 

Yigael

@AnthonyI think users should be able to customize windows as they see fit. Why change the taskbar options from 10 to 11? There is no good reason other than a lack of consideration for users. The taskbar should be whatever I want it to be, not what Microsoft thinks it should be.

The problem as i see it is the taskbar in its new incarnation takes up a ridiculous amount of space and gets in the way. Setting to autohide makes it really annoying. Making it as small as possible in registry still feels bigger than I'm happy with, but the font cannot be resized to fit the taskbar, the text size slider in options only goes down to 100%, leaving the taskbar text too big to properly fit. It just looks awful lol
thanks! this exactly what i need for my windows 11 to look more good!

@yigael I think you should consider to review the linked tool, It seems to be a malicious software as you can see from this VirusTotal test 

Hi @vasmarine... StartAllBack ! This is an awesome 3rd party App! Everything I needed to edit and the user wants the OS to look and feel! As this is after-all "my" right !! Many thanks
Hi @nrebaioli
Definitely a false-positive as this has been tested and scanned thoroughly with several deep scanning and code confirmation.