How to Make Your Taskbar Buttons Always Switch to the Last Active Window

Because Home windows 7, apps with various open home windows are blended into a single taskbar button. Hovering in excess of the button presents you a live thumbnail of every window and you can then click on the window you want to do the job with.

If you are routinely switching amongst apps with open windows, that can get a little cumbersome. You can keep the Ctrl key down even though clicking a taskbar button to perspective the last lively window—and then hold clicking with Ctrl held to cycle via every of that app’s open up windows — but that often just lets you view the window rather of building it energetic. If you are keen to make a delicate Registry edit, you make it so that clicking a taskbar button usually opens the final lively window — no Ctrl important wanted.

Notice: This does not perform on Home windows 11 as of Could 2022. Nonetheless, it does continue to do the job on Windows 10,

Make Taskbar Buttons Open up the Final Lively Window by Modifying the Registry Manually

To make clicking taskbar buttons open the final lively window, you just require to make an adjustment to a person setting in the Home windows Registry. This is effective on PCs working Home windows 7, 8, or 10.

Warning: Registry Editor is a impressive device and misusing it can render your system unstable or even inoperable. This is a rather very simple hack and as extended as you stick to the directions, you should not have any complications. That explained, if you have never ever labored with it ahead of, look at reading through about how to use the Registry Editor ahead of you get begun. And definitely back up the Registry (and your pc!) right before earning changes.

Linked: Learning to Use the Registry Editor Like a Professional

Open the Registry Editor by hitting Commence and typing “regedit”. Push Enter to open up Registry Editor and give it authorization to make changes to your Laptop.

In the Registry Editor, use the left sidebar to navigate to the next essential:

HKEY_Latest_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced

Up coming you are going to create a new worth inside of the Sophisticated vital. Right-simply click the Sophisticated crucial and opt for New > DWORD (32-little bit) Benefit.

Title the new value “LastActiveClick”.

Double-simply click the new LastActiveClick benefit to open up its qualities window. Alter the value from to 1 in the “Value data” box and then simply click “OK.”

You can now exit Registry Editor. You’ll want to sign out and again in (or restart your Personal computer) for the modifications to take area. You can examination it by just popping open any app and opening several windows. Make a window from a diverse application energetic and then simply click the original app’s taskbar button. It need to open the past window you worked on in that application. To reverse the modifications, just head again into the Registry and either change the LastActiveClick benefit back to — or delete the benefit completely — and then indication out and back again into Windows.

Obtain Our A single-Click on Registry Hacks

If you do not truly feel like diving into the Registry oneself, we’ve produced some a pair of registry hacks you can use. The “Enable Previous Energetic Click” hack makes the LastActiveClick worth and sets it to 1. The “Disable Final Energetic Click on (Default)” hack gets rid of the value from your Registry, restoring the default conduct. Both equally hacks are integrated in the subsequent ZIP file. Double-click the one particular you want to use and click by means of the prompts. When you’ve utilized the hack you want, indicator out and back into Home windows or restart your personal computer.

Taskbar Very last Active Click on Hacks

Similar: How to Make Your Own Windows Registry Hacks

These hacks are actually just the Sophisticated  key, stripped down to the LastActiveClick  value we talked about in the former part, and then exported to a REG file. And if you love fiddling with the Registry, it’s truly worth taking the time to learn how to make your personal Registry hacks.