Missing the Windows 10 taskbar? You can’t port it to Windows 11 yet, but the new PowerToys feature might be the next best thing.
- A new menu bar can be brought to Windows 11
- It will come in the form of an optional Command Palette dock in PowerToys
- This will contain shortcuts to your favorite tools, as well as system monitoring information, but it’s just an idea for now.
Windows 11 may not let you move the taskbar to the top of the screen, but it can give you a top menu bar as a sort of replacement for that ability, and that’s an idea I like – but it proves somewhat divisive.
Windows Central has highlighted this potential new development, and I should make it clear in advance that this is a proposed addition to PowerToys, Microsoft’s suite of tools to enhance Windows 11, and not a possible change to the OS itself.
A new feature is the optional Command Palette dock, which is one of the tools in PowerToys – the Windows 11 launcher, actually. (The Command Palette will take over from the Run utility eventually, though it’s still a work in progress for now).
The said dock comes in the form of a menu bar that can be on the top (or sides, or really bottom) Windows 11 desktop environment. It can handle readings of your system information – such as a small display of CPU usage, or internet speed – and allows you to pin your favorite performance and PowerToys resources to the bar.
As always with PowerToys, if you really want to go deep with a feature there will be all kinds of customization tricks, including changing the appearance of the dock with a different background, or using a light or dark theme.
Analysis: taskbar stand-in
So, this is like a taskbar focused on PowerToys that you can use anywhere as noted, it gives you a faster and easier access to these resources, as well as various functions besides, along with visual displays of system information.
I like this idea and would welcome this addition to PowerToys, although some people are not too happy about the idea of losing the wealth of the desktop to the second bar (with the taskbar already at the bottom of the screen, of course). That’s fair enough, and you don’t need to open the Command Palette dock if you don’t want to. (Assuming it ever gets done, that is – we don’t know if this project has legs yet, it’s just an idea at the moment).
The dock would work better, perhaps, if the bar only became visible when you moved the mouse over the top (or side) area of the screen where it is located.
There are some who agree with this idea in principle, but it is better that this is used as a full taskbar replacement. Which means you can add Windows 11 taskbar items as ‘widgets’ to this dock, and permanently hide the taskbar, using this instead (and place it wherever you want, of course). In fact, however, I don’t see that happening – PowerToys is not designed to replace Windows 11 functionality, it’s an add-on package.
Seeing as Microsoft seems to have recently turned a new leaf in terms of improving Windows 11 – promising to eliminate bugs, as well as increase performance levels and overall responsiveness – perhaps this new attitude may include giving us long-awaited capabilities such as moving the taskbar, though? I doubt it, given how far we are from this functionality being rolled out in Microsoft’s new OS, but I guess you never know.
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