Can you place a shortcut in the large blank areas of the taskbar to the left or right of where they are normally placed?

martik777 · Wednesday at 9:20 PM

I want an icon always in the same spot

hsehestedt · Wednesday at 9:26 PM

martik777 said:
I want an icon always in the same spot

No. Maybe someone can comment whether any third-party shell replacement / enhancement programs can do something like that, but not with Windows alone.

antspants · Wednesday at 9:26 PM

Left click and hold on the icon, drag it to where you want it in the row of icons. But you can’t place it away from the other icons, you may be able to with something like hsehestedt mentions.

Wisewiz · Wednesday at 9:30 PM

Yeah, well, I haven’t seen any app that can do that for you.
@antspants He wants out of the cluster, in the blank space. No can do.

antspants · Wednesday at 9:32 PM

Microsoft has become strict on what 3rd party software developers can do with the taskbar.

martik777 said:
Can you place a shortcut in the large blank areas of the taskbar to the left or right of where they are normally placed?

Doing this would probably requite a taskbar spacer or a software that could position an icon at an x/y position, I know of no such thing.

antspants · Wednesday at 9:33 PM

Wisewiz said:
Yeah, well, I haven’t seen any app that can do that for you.
@antspants He wants out of the cluster, in the blank space. No can do.

He hasn’t got that choice, as I mentioned. So dragging it to a position in the row of icons is the best suggestion so far?

antspants · Wednesday at 9:34 PM

I want Windows to do my dishes and make my bed. Looking forward to an AI based PC.

Wisewiz · Wednesday at 9:39 PM

Well, my friend, the AI MS calls Copilot made a series of four ignorant blunders this morning for me. Repeated dumb blunders.

antspants · Wednesday at 9:43 PM

Wisewiz said:
Well, my friend, the AI MS calls Copilot made a series of four ignorant blunders this morning for me. Repeated dumb blunders.

Yes. We’re all doomed.

antspants · Wednesday at 9:48 PM

I suspect the help threads in 2026 are going to be things like;

“I asked CoPilot on my AI based PC to tell me how to write a script for my taskbar and instead it sent a plastic surgeon around to my house and now I look like Miley Cyrus”

Berton · Wednesday at 11:23 PM

Can put more shortcuts on the Taskbar but if too many will get an overflow item [which is shown as 3 horizontal dots] that holds at least 4 icons.

martik777 · Wednesday at 11:55 PM

It's my sleep shortcut. I'll move it to the front or place it on the lower right corner of the desktop.

Needed as sleep never works with windows (for long)

antspants · Thursday at 1:55 AM

martik777 said:
It's my sleep shortcut. I'll move it to the front or place it on the lower right corner of the desktop.

Needed as sleep never works with windows (for long)

Best position then, for quick access, would be the far right of the other icons.

Or you could try and add it to your start menu.

If you placed the shortcut in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs and then look for it in "Start - All Applications" you should be able to "Pin to Start".

But adding it to the far right of your other taskbar icons would be much faster to access.
There are also registry/context menu tweak apps that can add it to your right click context menu, but I would stick with the taskbar as apposed to messing with your registry.

martik777 · Thursday at 2:18 AM

If I put it in front or in the right lower corner of the desktop it stays in the same place. On the right in the taskbar and any new tasks will bury it

I also have a hotkey combo for it

antspants · Thursday at 2:22 AM

martik777 said:
If I put it in front or in the right lower corner of the desktop it stays in the same place. On the right in the taskbar and any new tasks will bury it

I also have a hotkey combo for it

That would be expected. Take a second to move it back to the end again. How many times do you add a new icon to the taskbar?
But as long as you have something that works for you

A Guy · Thursday at 3:48 AM

With my Windows 10 (and 7 before that) I just unlocked the task bar, created a blank folder in Documents, Created 2 new Toolbars and linked them to the blank folders and dragged them where I wanted them allowing me to set the width. Not having 11, I'll just point you towards

Windows 11 Add Separators and Spacers to Start Menu and Taskbar

This post will show you how to add separators and spacers to the Start menu and taskbar in Windows 11. Windows 11 has a fresh Start menu and taskbar with

winaero.com

A Guy