Move Program Icons In Taskbar

[dakotatech]

I haven't recieved any responses from a windows site so I thought I'd try here.

 

This is more of a irritation than a real problem. I'm using Vista.

I have 2 different programs running. Access and IE.

I will be doing a C&P form IE to Access. Basically entering new data from a website into our database. I may do 2 or 3 customers names and addresses then all of a sudden the active program icons in the task bar have reversed. Access was first when I booted up then I opened IE. Now IE is first.

 

This is not the quick launch icons on the left.

This is not the clock etc icons on the right.

This is the only two programs I have running.

 

I prefer my active programs in a certain order. Essentially the order that I open the program first thing in the morning. It's a muscle memory thing.

 

I am forced to shut down one program and restart it to get it back to the right. It gets worst as the day goes on when I have 4 different (required) programs running. I may have to shut down and restart 3 programs.

 

Any way to just move an icon??

[TCH-Dick]

The short answer is, no, vista can not do this. However, there are tools out there, just search for things like vista taskbar shuffle or vista taskbar hacks and you will find a few tools just for this.

[dakotatech]

Somehow through the process of minimize and maximize from one program to the other they shift. If I knew what process was I would just reverse it.

[TCH-Bruce]

It does this on XP as well and it bugs me. But Windows 7 allows you to move them where ever you want in the task bar. It happens when Explorer refreshes. I wonder if this would work, haven't tried it. But if you bring up the task manager and kill Explorer and then restart it using the Task Manager (the only way to get your taskbar back after killing it) if it would populate the traskbar in the order they were opened originally.

[dakotatech]

Update:

 

Well I had a long list of new customers to enter this morning and it did it again.

 

So I tried what Bruce said. I killed explorer and restarted it. Sure enough the icons came up in the correct order. Now I wonder how Window knows which order is correct? Possibly the sequence they are in memory. Maybe tomorrow I'll start my programs in the wrong order and see how the icons are restored.

[TCH-Bruce]

Cool, thanks for the update. I kind of thought they would.