Windows 7 does not have a "Never Combine, Hide Labels" option in the taskbar settings, but a lot of people would like to have this option. I have not seen instructions posted anywhere, so here is how to make Windows 7 never group taskbar icons but also hide the labels: 1. Go to your taskbar properties and set Taskbar Buttons to "Never Combine". 2. Launch REGEDIT and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Desktop\WindowMetrics 3. Create a new String Value and call it MinWidth. 4. Modify the string properties and set the value to 56. 5. Restart your computer, and now Windows 7 will never combine icons, but it will also hide the labels. If you are unhappy with the changes simply delete the MinWidth key and change back to "Always Combine, Hide Labels" I hope this helps some of you out. September 4th, 2009 Edit: The MinWidth value should be set to 56, NOT 54 as I originally posted. Setting the value to 54 results in disappearing icons on the taskbar when it becomes heavily populated with icons. Setting the value to 56 prevents icons from disappearing.
Let me clarify.. It does work if the taskbar is vertical, but only if it is dragged to its lowest form. Is it possible to hide labels and never combine, regardless of vertical taskbar width?
I want to NOT thank you for this. I did EXACTLY as told. Not only did my PC decide to throw a tanty when I deleted the reg item after I found it was NOT what I expected (the icons only became just icons in large mode) but I spent the next 90mins having to restore my laptop back 5 days to my last backup. It stopped my laptop from showing I was connected to the net, by making sure it made look like my whole wifi was down.... then it would not boot any further than welcome, then after that it was a black screen with the mouse cursor. Safe mode was fine, but forget booting normally. The ONLY thing I had done was this reg hack..... so this WAS the reason for the problems. I would hope that NOBODY has this problem.
Found this thread through a google search regarding the same issue for windows 8. I'd just like to confirm that the trick works just as described on my windows 8 64. Just been trying for 5 minutes, i'll edit this if i see problems with time. Thanks to the OP