How to Move the Taskbar in Windows 10

Put the Windows taskbar in a place that’s convenient for you

By default, the Windows taskbar is positioned horizontally at the bottom of the screen, offering quick access to your favorite applications, the Cortana search bar, and the Start Menu. It’s possible to move the Windows taskbar to the top, left, or right side of the screen. You can also easily add and remove the Quick Launch Toolbar.

Instructions in this article apply to Windows 10.

How to Move the Windows Taskbar

The simplest way to move the taskbar is to click and drag it. Left-click and hold on the taskbar, drag it to the side of the screen you want it on, then release your mouse button. You can also reposition the taskbar from your Windows settings:

Right-click any blank space on your taskbar, then select Taskbar settings.

In the Taskbar Settings window, set the Taskbar location on screen to Left, Top, Right, or Bottom.

It’s also possible to lock the Windows taskbar in place. If you are unable to move the taskbar, then you need to unlock it.

How to programmatically move Windows taskbar?

I’d like to know any sort of API or workaround (e.g., script or registry) to move (or resize) Windows taskbar to another position including another monitor (if dual monitors). Definitely, we can move task bar by using mouse, but I want to move it by a program, or a sort of automated way.

I tried to find Win32 API, but it seems no one does this job.

EDIT: I was surprised by many people’s opinion. Let me explain why I wanted it. In my workplace, I’m using dual monitors (resolutions are different), and the taskbar is placed on the left monitor while the primary monitor is the right monitor. However, I often connect to my workplace computer via remote desktop. After the remote connection, the taskbar position is switched. That’s why I wanted to make a simple program that can save/restore taskbar’s position. Everyday I have to rearrange my taskbar. That’s it. I just want it for me.

6 Answers 6

As far as I can tell, Vista and onwards ignore any program trying to move the taskbar. The old method was ABM_SETPOS + MoveWindow, and this no longer works on the taskbar. The only way that I am aware of that still works is simulating a mouse move (click-move-release). I’ve read about that method, but I’ve never done it myself.

I also have this need on Windows 7. Here is my take to do this using autohotkey script:

I have tested this on Windows 7 with classic window theme. To use this, assign a hotkey to call this script, then position mouse cursor to where you want to drag the taskbar to, then press the hotkey.

The taskbar is a window. Use SetWindowPos() to move it. See also SHAppBarMessage() and ABM_WINDOWPOSCHANGED.

Though the taskbar may be special and Windows may not like you moving it around. There are a lot of special cases in the Shell appbar API implementation for the taskbar.

To move to another monitor, use EnumDisplayMonitors() with GetMonitorInfo(). Some monitors may have negative coordinates.

I’ve had some luck with this task in an AutoHotkey script, just in case you don’t care about the language used. It uses simulated keystrokes and mouse movements to move your taskbar. I stopped short of automatically unlocking/locking the taskbar.

The hard part was getting it to work reliably. A lot of the code is dedicated to making sure that the taskbar moved. It still doesn’t work 100%. it fails like 10% of the time from what I’ve seen. However, it should be good enough to get you started!

If I ever come back to this script to make it work perfectly, I’ll repost here.

Here is the example script (highlighting is a bit odd here, as the language is AHK):

Thank you for asking this question!

Its Windows 10 now and i got the same kind of problem where i made a script to switch between a 2 screens setup and only the tv for movies. After switching back to the 2 screens setup, the taskbar is back on the right monitor, just like you experienced.

I found a solution involving modifying the registry key that defines the taskbar location.

This is the said key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects3

Open the regisrty editor while your taskbar is at the right spot and size (Win+R, type regedit», the enter), then navigate to the key path above. You should find a binary value named «Settings» that looks like this:

30 00 00 00 fe ff ff ff 02 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 4e 00 00 00 32 00 00 00 80 f8 ff ff b2 01 00 00 be f8 ff ff ea 05 00 00 60 00 00 00 01 00 00 00

Your numbers may vary, but it doesn’t matter. Simply click on file>export action in the menu once you navigated to the value, then use the file->export option from the top menu, and and save the .reg file in your system forlder (C:\Windows\System32). Make sure the export range is set to «Selected Branch» so only this value is affected. This will create a registry script that will restore the exact position of your taskbar.

However, if you just use the «merge» option on your script, you won’t see the change since you will need to restart the explorer.exe process. To achieve this, you can simply make a batch script in noptepad looking like this:

Simply replace in the 2nd line the «file.reg» by the complete file name of the .reg script you previously created, then save the file as a «.bat».

Running this script as an admin will reset the taskbar to where it should be. You will see the ui flashing briefly, since the taskbar and desktop will reset.

You could call this script from a Task, or make a shortcut that is set to run as admin to make it even easier!

I hope this answer reaches you, even if is is a «little» late XD

Windows 10 keeps moving taskbar, even if locked

I have 6 Acer Predator X34 Ultrawide 3440×1440 monitors in a 2 row 3 column configuration. However, the bottom 3 monitors have been spanned using nVidia’s SLI spanning mode so that the bottom row of monitors are seen by windows as one extremely wide 10,320 x 1440. They are physically arranged like this:

Sorry if the ASCII art gets munged on non monospaced fonts 🙂 Anyway, hopefully you can see that M4 is the virtual spanned display really consisting of 3 separate monitors but windows sees it as one super wide monitor and it is configured as the primary display. This configuration is important for what I’m doing.

I do not want the task bar *anywhere* on the main display. So, easy enough, I just drag it over to the side and then up to the top of M4 and then up a bit more to the bottom of M1. This is great. for a while. After a bit of time (or maybe an event like windows puts monitors into power saving mode) or any number of other seemly random situations, Windows 10 pops the task bar right back down to the bottom of the main display. I move it back up which buys me a little time and Windows eventually moves it right back down to the bottom of the main display again. This is *extremely* irritating and happens even if I lock the task bar.

How do get Windows to leave the task bar right where I put it and stop moving it on me?

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• Did you try restarting the Computer and check if the issue still persist?
• What is the current build version of Windows? To check the build number, please follow the below steps;

1. Press the hotkey Win key+ R on your keyboard to open the .Run dialog
2. In the Run dialog, type winver and press Enter.
3. This will open the About Windows window displaying the Windows version and the build number in it.

Let’s install the pending updates for Windows and check if the issue still persist. Follow the below steps to install any pending updates;

Press Windows key+ I to open the Settings .

Click on Update & security , then click on Windows Update .

Select Check for updates . If Windows Update says that your PC is up to date, you have all the updates that are currently available.

If the issue still persist, I would suggest you to restart the file explorer service and check if the issue is resolved;

To restart the file explorer, follow the below steps;

1. Press control key+ Shift key+ Esc key to open the task manager.
2. Go to Details tab and right click on the File Explorer, then select End Task.
3. Now, click on the file option and select Run new task.
4. Type explorer.exe and hit Enter.

Hope the issue will be resolved.

Let us know if you need further assistance, we will be glad to help you.

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Thanks for the reply. I appreciate you trying to help. These responses look like the kind of response that would apply to pretty much any question asked, and of course, I already know to do those things.

The build is 10586.494

My system was already up to date.

This issue not only persists across reboots as well as any service restarts, but also persisted across a complete reinstall of Windows 10, sometimes even with a complete drive reformat. In fact, it was showing up even before I spanned my displays with nVidia and even before I had any software or applications installed.

It is *easily* reproducible every single time either of these two things happen (but occurs other times as well):

1: Windows puts displays into power save mode. As soon as I wake them up again, the task bar has jumped back down to the bottom.

2: Whenever the «User Account Control» dialog pops up warning about installing software from an unknown source, windows shows an opaque black curtain over all displays except for the dialog and as soon as I answer, when the opaque black curtain is removed and the dialog disappears, I see the task bar jump back down from M1 to M4, the primary display, again.

I’m pretty sure this is a bug in the Windows 10 UI shell.

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The monitor configuration is only part of the equation. The admin authorization is the problem. Anytime admin authorization is required, the monitors go black, and the approval dialog pops up after answering ‘yes’ the bar jumps down to the main display. This is very *clearly* a UI bug in the Windows 10 shell.

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I have a similar problem with just 2 widescreen monitors spanned on a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, using NVIDIA Surround. Wherever I park the locked taskbar, it always jumps to the top of the second display, which in my case is on the left.

Power up, login, move the task bar to the bottom (say of monitor 2) and then re-lock it, then power down. The next time I power up, it has moved again. Very annoying.

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Same problem here.

OS Name: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

Version 10.0.16299 Build 16299

I have 2 monitors with the taskbar locked at the bottom of monitor 2 (connected via DVI) to my left.

Monitor 1 (connected via DP) is my main display.

When turning on the PC, if monitor 2 is not also powered on before Windows starts, the locked taskbar always moves the bottom of Monitor 1, regardless of whether Monitor 1 is on or off. This messes up my desktop layout (I uses Fences) and I have to adjust this and manually move the taskbar back to Monitor 2 and ensure it is locked.

Please fix this stupid time waster. Windows 10 is no longer a new OS, why is this still a bug? This never happened for me in Windows 7.

By the way, the canned responses I regularly see here from help desk members such as Rishad are not at all helpful and read more like PR scripts that insult our intelligence, than actual response to the issue at hand. As someone who was had no other option but to pay 250 AUD for Windows 10 pro I am quite disappointed in both the OS itself and the poor support.

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Same issue here.

Task bar keeps moving by itself to location I didn’t choose. I searched for the problem on the internet and only things that shows up is how to move the bar back to preferred location which is completely missing the point. All I want is a fix on the task bar moving by itself even when locked. Very annoying and time wasting.

Thanks Ajhmain for your latest post. This issue was originally posted in August 2016 but it’s November 2017 now.

Windows 10 Home

Version 1709 build 16299

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I have the same issue, also persisting after clean installs of W10 64-bit including latest NVidia drivers.

3 x 1920×1080 monitors connected to a GTX770, configured in NVidia Surround. Despite using NVidia Surround, W10 appears to recognize it’s 3 separate monitors and usefully can span the task bar across one monitor, not all three. I set the task bar to be at the bottom of the center monitor and lock it, which is where I want it. Sometimes (but not all the time) when I start Windows the task bar appears at the top of the center monitor, not the bottom, so I have to unlock, manually move it, and lock it again.

I created a batch file to restart explorer.exe as a potential fix.

@echo off
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start explorer.exe

Running this has varied outcomes. Mostly the task bar appears at the top of the left monitor, once it appeared at the bottom spanning all three monitors. It never results in the task bar appearing where I want it (bottom of center monitor only).

Windows 10 64-bit Version 1703 (OS Build 15063.726)

Many hours wasted, so a fix would be appreciated!

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I have been having the exact same issue and I’m starting to think it’s due to the «auto hide the task bar» setting. Try turning that off and see if it works for you.

If that doesn’t solve it I wanted to share system specs to see if we could find anything in common that could be causing the issue.

Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI (BIOS F7)

GTX 1070 — 387.92 driver

Win 10 Pro Insider Preview 64-bit build 17025

Running 3×1 surround on the 1070 and 1 monitor above on the igpu.

Problem exists on insider preview and standard builds and even after a clean install. I’ve tried a few different video drivers recently but none of them solved the issue either.

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Exactly the same problem here. I have a laptop but 99% of the time I use it with a big secondary screen plugged in. I always want the task bar at the bottom of the secondary screen but Windows 10 is consistently moving the task bar back to the bottom of the laptop screen. Windows 7 could handle this just fine, in fact in Windows 7 I could hibernate my old laptop at home, take it into work, plug it into the big screen there, bring it out of hibernation and the task bar would still be on the big screen.

Furthermore, I have my task bar set to double height, I hate Windows combining taskbar buttons and two rows gives enough room that it pretty much never has to. However, in Windows 10 when I drag my double height taskbar from the laptop screen to the big screen it inexplicably switches to being single height! This worked fine in Windows 7.

Honestly, Windows 10 is full of things like this. It might not sound like much but when every single time I move my laptop between work and home (ie every twice every day, once each way), or the screen turns off due to inaction, I need to unlock, move the taskbar, resize it, lock it again. It must add up to hours every year, hours I didn’t lose with Windows 7.