Disappearance of Windows 11 Taskbar Icons after Switching Virtual Desktops

Anonymous
2023-11-24T09:01:51+00:00

Windows 11 22H2
In Windows 11's built-in virtual desktop feature, there is a high probability that icons of active applications on the current desktop may not be displayed when switching between different virtual desktops. The icons only appear when I click on the respective application. I have attempted to resolve the issue through restarts and using Sfc and Dism for repairs, but the problem persists. An essential configuration to note is that the taskbar is set to display windows only from the current desktop.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-03-07T21:57:03+00:00

    Wow.. 7th march and no fixes. That's issue is cause of no usage Windows 11 in my case. Looks like the best fix for today is using Windows 10.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-03-10T04:58:29+00:00

    I have been having this issue for months. As of today, it continues to be a problem.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-03-13T13:21:48+00:00

    It does appear to be associated with multiple desktops. I use a second desktop periodically. Sometimes if I toggled back and forth between desktops, the icons will come back, or maybe some come back and others disappear. When I completely close out the second desktop, the problem goes away. It's inconvenient because a second desktop is handy, but then I have this problem with taskbar icons disappearing. My only fix is to remove the extra desktop when I'm not using it.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-03-13T13:58:12+00:00

    Yeah, it's pretty annoying. I like using Virtual Desktops. It's worked great for quite some time and now there are little idiosyncrasies every time I use Virtual Desktops. (KB5032190) appears to be the culprit. It was installed on my system 11/15/23 and there's still no fix. Be glad when it is fixed.

    Cheers!

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-03-13T14:50:08+00:00

    I'm very happy to report that I resolved this issue by installing this open source Explorer patcher: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher?tab=readme-ov-file

    The intent of this project is to restore a "Windows 10" appearance to the taskbar, which I actually don't care for, but there is an option to maintain the Windows 11 style. As an added bonus, it will also strip the ads and recommendations from the Start menu.

    Once installed, right click the taskbar and choose "Properties." In the resulting window, find the style option and set it to "Windows 11 (default)"

    Image

    It is incredible how much cognitive load I was wasting every single day hunting through these invisible icons, and it's a major disappointment to me that Microsoft has shown no interest in addressing this issue after many months of continued reports in this thread.

    EDIT

    Apparently the Windows 11 style also suffers from disappearing icons (though it seemed to happen less frequently). I've returned to the "Windows 10" style. If you set it to combine icons, it looks virtually the same (see below).

    Please consider donating to the generous and talented author of this program (it is not me!), they deserve it!

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