When Taskbar icons are set to “Combine,” which is the default setting, to switch windows within a Taskbar group, you need to click or hover your mouse pointer over the group icon and then click on the appropriate taskbar thumbnail image. If you’re routinely switching between apps with open windows, that can get a little cumbersome. After doing a simple Registry tweak, you don’t need to click once on the app group and then click again on the thumbnail to switch to that app. Subsequent clicks would cycle through the available window instances in that group.
To make clicking taskbar buttons open the last active window, you just need to make an adjustment to one setting in the Windows Registry or Just use Last_Active.vbe script . This works on PCs running Windows 7, 8, or 10.
Enable “last active” click feature in Taskbar
Method 1: Download and Run a .reg File
1- Just download the Last_Active_win.rar file (at the end of the page).
2- Open it, and double-click the Last_Active_win.vbe file it contains. Confirm the User Account Control dialog if prompted.
3- “Open the last active Windows feature has been enabled ” Click ok button.
To revert to the earlier behavior, just double-click the Last_Active_win.vbe
Method 2 : Use the Registry Editor
Start the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and go to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Right-click the Advanced key and choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name the new value “LastActiveClick.”
Create a DWORD value named LastActiveClick and set its value data to 1.
You can now exit Registry Editor. You’ll need to sign out and back in for the changes to take place.
Tips: You can still use Ctrl + click to switch windows within a taskbar group.
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Published on: Jun 26, 2019-edited date : 23-07-2023