How to order windows of the same program on taskbar

Question

I'm using Windows 8 and appreciate the ability to reorder my programs at will in the taskbar. However, for different windows of the same program - I have three Firefox windows, for instance - I can't seem to reorder them; what's worse, they seem to regularly switch themselves around for no reason I can see.

I usually want my main Firefox window to be the first (leftmost) one in the taskbar, with my work window second and the third window last, but every now and then they get mixed up and I have to get used to remembering which is which all over again, and I can't figure out how to manually fix them. I think this happens with programs other than Firefox too, but I suppose I could be misremembering.

1. Is there any way to reorder the taskbar buttons corresponding to multiple windows of the same program manually?

2. Why does the order of my Firefox windows keep shifting around? Is there a way to ensure it keeps the order straight?

Solution

Figured I'd share how I got this solved.

Scott's comment pointed me to this question: Reorder Windows 7 taskbar items The accepted answer to that points to a program now called 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, which as it turns out works with Windows 8 as well as 7 now. It not only offers options for easily reordering windows within a taskbar group (either by right-clicking and dragging the taskbar tabs themselves or by dragging the preview windows), but also a whole lot of further options for customizations and conveniences. So for anyone else frustrated with this, that program is exactly what you're looking for and more.

Comments

[Admin]

I’m still running Window 7, and I can attest that this phenomenon occurs with many programs; specifically, Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer, and I believe that I’ve seen it in Word and Notepad as well. Related questions (for Windows 7): show taskbar icons in opened order and Reorder Windows 7 taskbar items.

[Admin]

the fact that it reorders means it is possible... dont know how tho

[Admin]

This could be helpful :) Suppose there were three Firefox windows A B C, and now the order is C B A. Close (X) (you may have to click past a warning if there are more than one tab) C and B, and in A: File (Alt + F) > Work Offline, and then from History (Alt + S) > Recently Closed Windows, restore B first, and then C. Work Offline helps to reload pages/tabs from the memory/disk cache.

[Admin]

Also, please note that the default number of restorable windows is three which can be changed via browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo in about:config; the default number of restorable tabs per window is 10 (browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo). Changing the default values to very high values may increase memory usage correspondingly.

[Admin]

Still looking forward to a method without 3rd party software. Is it possible?

[Olson.dev]

It also supports Windows 10 now.

[jrw32982]

Except that it wants to be memory-resident. If possible, I want to just modify the registry once to achieve the don't-reorder-the-taskbar functionality. Is there a registry hack for this?

[Shane A. Workman]

Straight from the FAQ: Q: Which registry keys does 7+ Taskbar Tweaker modify? I don’t need extra processes in my system. A: The only registry keys the tweaker modifies are its own settings. There are no registry keys for the options it provides. The tweaker does that by injecting a DLL to explorer, hooking/subclassing/some other methods of the dark side. As for extra processes, the tweaker is a native program, and is very lightweight. It shouldn’t slow down your system, and uses an extremely small amount of memory. Also, you can hide the tray icon if you want.

[empleat]

Unfortunately this doesn't work! While Firefox is not running on the background and taskbar tweaker is set to launch at windows bootup. I Am on Win 10.