Windows 7 – Prevent Internet Explorer Tabs from Opening in Taskbar Stack

internet explorertabstaskbarwindows 7

I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate, and IE 8, and have the taskbar in icon view. I'm not sure how to explain this, but I'm amazed at how each tab in IE8 seems to act like a new "thing" in the taskbar (as if each tab was a window).

Each tab acts like a different window in the taskbar although they are actually running in the same window. Now when I use IE 8 it looks (in the taskbar) like there's 15 windows open when in fact the taskbar is simply showing the 15 tabs.

Tabs displayed in stack

More simply put, it's displaying a "stack" for all of the tabs when I'd rather have the icon act like, for example, Firefox so that a stack is only shown for the multiple windows.

Is there a way to disable this strange "taskbar" effect? I'd rather have the taskbar show the main window and not the tabs individually.

There has to be a simple way to do this.

Best Answer

See "How to Disable IE8/IE9 Tab previews in Windows 7 taskbar"

To disable IE tab previews in taskbar, just open Internet Explorer > Tools > Internet Options. Open settings for ‘Tabs’ and uncheck the box saying ‘Show previews for individual tabs in the taskbar’. Click Ok and restart IE for letting changes to take effect.

(The Tabs settings are opened via a button in the General tab of Internet Options)

This solution works for Internet Explorer versions 8 through 11.

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