How do you disable the taskbar preview window pop-ups?

Anonymous
2009-11-08T06:11:28+00:00

how do you completely disable the preview window that pops up when your mouse pointer hovers over an item on the taskbar?

the only thing i've been able to do is turn off the desktop composition option, which turns the preview windows into lists.

i don't want *anything* popping up.  all it does is get in the way!  thanks in advance

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

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Anonymous
2009-11-08T13:25:16+00:00

Hi telum01

You can set the hover time to a long value

Open Regedit by the use of RUN command or start menu search go to

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

 there right click on right pane  Create a new DWORD called ExtendedUIHoverTime and set the value to 20000 (that's 20 seconds) or value of your wish..

for that much of seconds it will not pop up..

so by hopefully turned off.

Hope it helps

NIKHIL

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Anonymous
2009-11-09T06:32:22+00:00

Hi Tangency

yes,

the value is in Milli seconds, and has to be a Decimal value. hex character not accepted.

Dword has designed accordingly 32 bit and 64 bit for respective versions.

thanks for understanding

NIKHIL

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-09-23T13:39:48+00:00

    I just want to say a huge thank you to Nikhil for providing an answer to this. I think that the developers of Windows should make this an easy to configure option in future versions of Windows.

    I am glad to see that I am not the only person who hates having popup things of any kind when they are trying to work. I, personally, cannot see any use at all for the preview windows - they are simply eye candy that reduces productivity as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't last 5 minutes with them on so I turned them off. I was, however, left with the (still) annoying text list which always popped up, instead of the thumbnail preview.

    Windows XP had it exactly right - you should get a text list if, AND ONLY IF, you click on the little arrow on the taskbar's button. Sadly, I don't think that is possible at all in Windows 7.

    Speaking of Windows XP, I never appreciated just how great that OS was until I used Windows 7. Windows 7 is a big step backwards in many respects. I know I worked faster and happier with Windows XP.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-09-24T13:45:12+00:00

    On Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:39:48 +0000, Chuckeenz wrote:

    > Speaking of Windows XP, I never appreciated just

    how great that OS was until I used Windows 7. Windows 7 is a big step

    backwards in many respects.

    I completely disagree, but it's your choice entirely. If you prefer

    Windows XP, install and run Windows XP.

    > I know I worked faster and happier with Windows XP.

    For almost everyone, it's true that when you go from something you

    know well to something that's new and different (whether the

    differences make it better or worse) it takes time to learn and

    appreciate the changes. Again, it's your choice what to run, but I

    urge you to give yourself sufficient  time to get accustomed to the

    changes and learn why Windows 7 is better, not worse, than all

    preceding versions of Windows. And if you do what I suggest, work very

    hard to do it without the preconceived notion that either one is

    better than other; if you start out with a prejudice, it's very likely

    that you will convince yourself that your prejudice was correct.

    --

    Ken Blake


    Ken Blake (MS MVP)

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-10-15T19:20:59+00:00

    Hello,

    I completely agree with Chuckeenz. I'm using Windows 7 professional since 5 months and still cannot get used with useless fancy new stuff. Taskbar thumbnais are completely useless. They annoy constantly what an user is doing and I can't identify a window with them. Even if I type Windows+Tab and I see big thumbnais, it's still difficult to identify a window. And what is even worse is that peridically, when I click a title in the task bar in order to give the focus of that window, instead of immediately pop up that window, it's like if that window was pinned. Disabling aero effects is not better because it make the task bar less readable, it makes even more difficult to see which window has the focus. Using a classic theme doesn't eliminate the taskbar thumbnais. Gpedit and registry hacks don't fix the issue, even if I increase the delay, I still have the focus problem.

    Definitively Microsoft is becoming each day less democratic. Democracy is propose new features if users want them and let them to turn them off if they don't like them.

    I have Window 7 since 5 months and I still continuously thinking to return to Windows XP just for that. Discontinuing Outlook Express was another big microsoft mistake. Making it part of Windows without allowing users to download and install an older version is an even bigger mistake.

    Disconitnuing Personalized Favorites after IE 7 was another huge mistake. Now I have a bunk of favorites and it's very difficult to navigate between them, I cannot separate the most used ones from the others while in start menu this functionality is still present. Mozilla Firefox is improving more and more over IE, not only for favorites management but also for letting users to see javascript erros through a command, instead of displaying annoying js errors popups.

    Instead of improving what Windows XP has done, MS only made things worse, adding features most users doesn't want, changing years of habits only for cosmetic effects and only to imitate other OS.

    It's time to consider a bit more the customer and the user. I'm seriusly considering to migrate back to XP or even to try Linux out.

    Sincerely

    Danilo Renzi

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