Remove Windows 7 taskbar thumbnails

Question

Is there any way to get rid of the taskbar thumbnail previews on Windows 7 once and for all?

Solution 1

You may try this:

http://www.nextofwindows.com/customizing-taskbar-thumbnail-with-taskbar-thumbnail-tuner-in-windows-7-and-8/

It should work.

Solution 2

If nothing else helps 7+ Taskbar Tweaker will for sure:

You'll need to keep it running, but it's quite a light-weight app and a portable installation is possible.

Solution 3

Snip from reference below (Edit: THIS APPEARS TO ONLY WORK FOR Vista): How to Enable or Disable Taskbar Thumbnail Preview in Windows 7

1. Click on Start button and type GPEdit.msc in Instant Search text box, then hit Enter.
2. Navigate to User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar in left pane of Local Group Policy Editor.
3. Locate and double click on Turn off taskbar thumbnails in right pane of Local Group Policy editor.
4. Select Enabled radion button.
5. Click OK to make the change effective.
6. Logoff and logon again or restart computer if needed.

Reference here

Edit: For Windows 7:

1. Backup registry
2. Win + R -> regedit
3. Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband
4. Right Click Taskband folder -> New -> DWORD 32-bit value
5. Name the new DWORD MaxThumbSizePx
6. Right click the new DWORD -> Modify -> enter "1"
7. Reboot

Win7 Reference

Solution 4

The best solution I have found is to go into this registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Then create a new DWORD value called ExtendedUIHoverTime with a value of 20000. That's supposed to cause a 20 second delay before the preview pops up, but for me it stopped it from happening entirely.

Source: answers.microsoft.com

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Comments

[MDT Guy]

You mean Aeropeek?

[Andres Guzman]

I've tried this method with out luck, I don't really know what the cause is.

[panhandel]

@Oily Looks like it's going to require a registry edit. Interested in that as an alternate answer?

[panhandel]

@Oily ok, check edit. This is as good as it appears to get without disabling the aero theme.

[Karan]

Strangely, unchecking only "Enable Aero Peek" and even logging off and logging back in or restarting did nothing for me on Win7, since the thumbnail previews still show up.

[Andres Guzman]

the bad thing about this is that it needs to be running

[Karan]

Yes, I already mentioned that clearly. However I find it so useful that I don't really mind, and it's not too heavy. I love the latest feature that's been added to display seconds in the tray clock. You can see other ways to use it from my previous answers.

[and31415]

"Always quote the most relevant part of an important link, in case the target site is unreachable or goes permanently offline."

[Slava]

Would be nice if you added more details, like 32bit and 64bit dword values, whether 20000 is a heximal or decimal value etc.

[Malvineous]

@Alph.Dev: The exact value doesn't really matter (hex or not) - any sufficiently large value will delay the thumbnails long enough that they are no longer a problem. 20000 as a hex number is 131072 decimal so worst case you'll disable the thumbnails even more so :-) DWORD is always 32-bit in the registry, a 64-bit value is called a QWORD.