Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Windows taskbar showing only one item per IE instance (not one per tab)

After I installed IE9 on Windows Server 2008, found that in Windows taskbar for Internet explorer are showed items for each open IE tab. If you are get used to showing only IE browser instances in Windows taskbar like me then you just found easy guide how to conifgure your IE to show only one item in Windows taskbar per instance.

So, you have many tabs opened in Internet Explorer, and widnow taskbar display many previews, one for each opened tab. On image below, two instances of IE are opened, first instance have two opened tabs and another IE instance have one opened tab.

Windows taskbar preview for IE 9 with Show previews for individual tabs in taskbar option on






And you think it would be better if only one preview per instance of IE will be visible. In our example we want to have two previews (imagine what a mess will be if you have dozen of open tabs) for each IE instance one without tabs:

Windows taskbar preview for IE 9 without tabs










Solution:
  • Click the Tools option at the top right corner of your Internet Explorer browser window and then click on Internet Options

    Click the Tools option at the top right corner of your Internet Explorer browser window and then click on Internet Options



















  • Internet Options --> General --> Tabs --> Settings

    In the Internet Options screen, under General tab, find Tabs category and click on the Settings button



















  • uncheck option "show previews for individual tabs in the taskbar *", click OK and restart your Internet Explorer.
  • Tabbed browser settings













Now you configured your IE to show previews in Winodws taskbar only for each instance not for tabs.


5 comments:

esty said...

Thanks! just what i was looking for

Mark said...

I am happy my article help you.

Uwe said...

First hit on Google :-)

Works perfectly, thanks a lot.

Anonymous said...

Cheers, saved the pain of having to look myself :D

Anonymous said...

I was actually looking to do the opposite. This really helped. Thanks!