14 DAY TRIAL // One of the features that are currently missing from Windows 11 is the ability to change the location of the taskbar.
Oddly enough, such capabilities were offered in Windows 10, but given the taskbar has gone through a major overhaul with the release of Windows 11, Microsoft decided to remove it when the new operating system was launched.
Right now, the taskbar is locked to the bottom of the screen, and while people online are calling for Microsoft to add an option to change its location, the company says this isn’t a priority right now.
The reason is as simple as it could be: the number of users requesting such a feature is very small, according to Microsoft itself, so the company wants to focus on improvements that make more sense for the entire userbase.
Third-party software to the rescue
In an AMA podcast on YouTube, Tali Roth, Microsoft's Head of Product, explained the company continues to monitor the feedback in this regard, but you’d better not hold your breath for an option to change the location of the taskbar.
“When it comes to something like actually being able to move the taskbar to different locations on the screen, there's a number of challenges with that. When you think about having the taskbar on the right or the left, all of a sudden the reflow and the work that all of the apps have to do to be able to understand the environment is just huge,” the Microsoft official said.
“And when you look at the data, while we know there is a set of people that love it that way and, like, really appreciate it, we also recognize that this set of users is really small compared to the set of other folks that are asking for other features. So at the moment we are continuing to focus on things that I hear more pain around. It is one of those things that we are still continuing to look at, and we will keep looking to feedback, but at the moment we do not have a plan or a set date for when we would, or if we should, actually build the side taskbar.”
If anything, third-party software to move the taskbar around is already available, with Start11 currently one of the most advanced customization solutions you can try out.
