Change Taskbar Thumbnails behavior

Personally I love the stack functionality in the Windows 7 Taskbar. Stacking all the thumbnails is a great way to keep the taskbar tidy and compact. The only thing that irritates me is that it doesn’t (by default) keep track of which of the windows I was working on last. If I’m working on several Excel Documents and I need to switch to another program for a few minutes, going back to the same Excel document will often lead me flipping through the entire stack.

There is a way to change this behavior, letting the Stack-feature save which window you worked in last. It requires a small Registry hack – and as always, create a backup before you do in case something should go horribly wrong. That being said, here’s how to fix it:

Change Taskbar Thumbnails behavior
Open Registry Editor (Start Button, Type Regedit, Press Enter)
Navigate to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER | SOFTWARE | Microsoft Windows | CurrentVersion | Explorer | Advanced
In the Right Pane, Right-click on an empty space and select New | Dword (32-bit) value
Save the Value as LastActiveClick
Set the Value Data to 1
Click OK
Close the Registry
And that’s all there’s to it!