Microsoft is making a big change to the Taskbar

Windows 11 brought some significant changes to the Taskbar, and not everyone liked it. Now, Microsoft is preparing another big change to the Taskbar. So will this new move be well received by users?

• After all, Microsoft seems to be working on a taskbar moving feature on Windows 11

Microsoft finally adds the ability to minimize icons to the Taskbar

One of the downsides of the Windows Taskbar is that if you have too many apps open, it gets cluttered with icons until Windows hides them behind a context menu. Many people really like the way macOS handles this with dynamic icon shrinking, and Windows has finally decided to adopt this approach.

This feature is currently in beta and you will need to sign up for the Windows Insider program to try it out. Since it is still a hidden feature, you can also use ViveTool and feature code 29785184 to gain access to it. Once you have installed the beta update, follow these steps to enable the feature.

1. Right-click on the Taskbar and select Taskbar settings .
2. Click on the Taskbar behaviors section .
3. Click the drop-down menu before Show smaller taskbar buttons and choose between the options Always, Never  , or When taskbar is full .

Microsoft decided to add its own twist to this feature. Instead of automatically making icons smaller with every app added to the Taskbar, this feature just makes every icon small on the fly as soon as the Taskbar fills up, giving you more space.

This is fine on a 13 or 14 inch laptop screen, but on larger screens and resolutions it makes selecting apps from the Taskbar incredibly difficult. If you want to transfer your FPS aiming skills to selecting icons on the Taskbar, you’ll enjoy this feature. People who don’t have pixel-perfect mouse control should turn it off.

But Dynamic Scaling is not really the best option.

Dynamic Scaling isn’t the best option when it comes to adding more icons to the Windows Taskbar, at least in its current implementation. First of all, as mentioned earlier, the icons are too small and you’ll have to be careful where you click.

This may seem like a small thing, but if you’re constantly switching between apps, these accidental clicks can slow you down to an annoying degree. Additionally, the way Windows scales icons means you can see blurry icons and other visual artifacts like jagged or blurry edges that make for a very poor user experience.

Changing the icon shape, especially if you have it set to shrink only when the Taskbar is full, is also visually disorienting. It takes you a while to find the icon you want to click instead of relying on muscle memory and clicking the much larger, clearly defined icon on the regular sized Taskbar.

If the Taskbar is nearly full and you are constantly opening and closing apps, this can also create a disorienting experience because there is no zooming animation. Icons often stutter, lag, or become unresponsive when resizing. The Taskbar is an important navigational element in Windows, and constantly resizing can make it harder to keep track.

Frequent changes can also put a strain on the system, as the OS needs to recalculate pixel values ​​to resize icons. While the Windows implementation shouldn’t put too much strain on the system, there’s still a chance it could impact system performance on lower-powered PCs that already struggle to run Windows.

Dynamic Scaling is also not the best option for multi-monitor setups. Those using four monitors will always run into issues as Windows struggles to maintain consistent scaling across the monitors. Depending on how much the monitor size, resolution, and pixel density vary, this can create a disjointed experience.

Last but not least, this can be an accessibility issue for people with visual impairments or motor skills issues. People with myopia cannot see the thumbnails clearly without glasses.

How Microsoft could improve icon scaling

Dynamic icon shrinking works in macOS because it was designed from the ground up with a miniaturized dock, and Apple has improved the dock a lot since then. Windows handles the Taskbar differently, so it takes more than just shrinking the icons on the Taskbar to get it to shrink properly.

People would like to see more zooming options, especially custom limits, when icons start to shrink. Being able to set Taskbar zooming on a per-monitor basis would also be a big help.

Also, allowing users to set a minimum threshold size is a worthwhile consideration. It prevents icons from becoming too small to see, and it also frees up space on the Taskbar for more icons. Microsoft also needs to make the animations work for this. Seeing icons jump back and forth between sizes is annoying.

Currently, icons and their clickable areas have shrunk, but the Taskbar height remains the same. An option to change the Taskbar height as icons shrink could make the whole experience more pleasant to look at.

Microsoft is on the right track with icon shrinking, but the feature needs a lot more work before it’s ready for the public. It’s not officially released yet, so there’s still room for improvement. This is a big change to one of the most important elements of Windows, and it should be treated as such.