With the Dev channel build 25211 Microsoft re-introduced the ability to drag-n-drop icons in the system tray on the taskbar. However, this novelty is not available to everyone. The company is rolling out it gradually, starting with a small group of users. Luckily, it is easy to activate this feature manually.
Windows 11 comes with a new taskbar that no longer includes most of its classic features. The user cannot change its on-screen position, disable icon grouping, and enable text labels for running apps. Even its context menu has been simplified, and contains only one "Settings" item.
Microsoft is slowly restoring the missing taskbar functionality, and also adds new modern features. Dev channel builds feature a new tablet-optimized taskbar and improved widgets. Finally, starting in build 25211 the taskbar context menu again includes the task manager entry.
Also in this build, Microsoft has added the ability to re-arrange tray icons with drag and drop. This feature isn't tied to the tablet-optimized taskbar, it works for the default UI mode.
By default, it is only available to a small select group of users, but anyone can enable it with help of the open source ViveTool app. Here's how.
Enable drag-n-drop for tray icons in Windows 11 build 25211
- Download ViveTool from this GitHub page and extract it to the c:\vivetool folder.
- Press Win + X and select Terminal (Admin) to open an elevated console.
- In PowerShell or Command Prompt, run the following command:
c:\vivetool\vivetool /enable /id:38764045 - Restart Windows 11 to apply the change.
You are done.
Now, try to move tray icons. The taskbar should now support this feature.
Later you can disable this feature with the following command:
c:\vivetool\vivetool /disable /id:38764045
Don't forget to run it from an elevated Terminal or Command Prompt.
It is good to see that Microsoft continues to improve the taskbar in Windows 11 and restores the features it lost on the way from Windows 10. Hopefully it will eventually receive the ability to ungroup apps and show their text labels.
via @PhantomOfEarth
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This is getting crazy.
Drag and drop icons in the system tray always worked before without enabling this hidden feature.
Now with Build 25217.1000 if I don’t enable this feature, not only it does not work anymore, but it crashes explorer.exe with exception 0xc0000005.
c:\vivetool\vivetool /enable /id:38764045
Also note that drag and drop to rearrange the icons in system tray works fine with Beta Build 22623.730 without enabling this feature at all.
It is disabled by default and enabling it does not make any difference. Seems that in previous builds they were not even checking the status of this ID.
There are actually 2 IDs that work together for the functions to work correctly
The second one has only effect if the 1st one is enabled.
If STTest is disabled, the second one has no effect at all and the drag and drop of the icons works normally as it always did before.
If STTest is enabled, then the second one can enable or disable the rearrange of the icons as intended.
STTest: 26008830
NotificationAreaIconRearrange: 38764045