14 DAY TRIAL // There are two kinds of Windows 10 users out there right now: those who keep their taskbars as clean as possible, relying on the Start menu or on desktop shortcuts to launch apps, and those who pinned everything to the taskbar for faster running of the things they use the most.
As long-time Windows users know already, the taskbar itself hasn’t evolved too much from the previous versions of the operating system. Or, at least, not in terms of features.
In Windows 10, the taskbar has indeed received a dark theme, transparency, and other cool visual refinements, as well as a bunch of new goodies, like an integrated search box, but other than that, the way it works is pretty much unchanged from the Windows 7 era.
And at some level, this is quite a good thing. Mostly because users coming from older Windows versions would thus feel like they’re using a familiar desktop, and we all know how important this is, especially now that Windows 7 has reached the end of support and everybody is recommended to switch to Windows 10.
And while people are waiting for Microsoft to make the taskbar feel more modern from one end to another, there’s one feature that some have already proposed and which the tech giant is unlikely to implement anytime soon.
It’s icon grouping in the taskbar, something that would make organizing things and keep the taskbar cleaner a lot easier.
Basically, these would work pretty much like some sort of folders that would include more than just an icon – think of an iPhone, for example. And app folder previews part of the icons that are stored in there, and tapping it expands the view to see everything inside. This is exactly how this should work on Windows 10 too, with someone on reddit proposing a design that at first glance aligns with Microsoft visual guidelines for the OS quite nicely.
Just think how useful this would be for those of us who pin a lot of icons to the taskbar. Users would just be able to group productivity apps in one folder, games in another one, and use a similar approach for any other apps. Clicking or tapping such a group would expand it above the taskbar to display all included icons.
As a matter of fact, this is already possible in Windows thanks to an application called Bins and which has been around for several years already. Originally launched for Windows 7 users, Bins works on Windows 10 very well too. Unfortunately, this app doesn’t come with a freeware license, but is available with a small fee should you want to purchase it.
What are the chances for Microsoft to implement such a feature in Windows 10 anytime soon? Pretty small, I’d say, especially since the focus seems to be on other improvements right now.
The next feature update for the OS will be version 20H2 due in the fall, and right now, all signs seem to suggest this would be a rather small release, something more like a service pack. After this one ships, Microsoft will switch to a one update per year schedule, with the next release to happen in the fall of 2021.
This is because Microsoft is reportedly planning to introduce Windows 10X in its release schedule, and right now, the plan is for this OS to go live in the spring, with a major update to ship every spring. So if Microsoft does intend to roll out major changes for the taskbar, you’d better not hold your breath for anything to happen too soon in a production version of the OS.