April 8th, 2004

Where does the taskbar get grouped button titles from?

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

If the “Group similar taskbar buttons” box is checked (default) and space starts to get tight on the taskbar, then then the taskbar will group together buttons represending windows from the same program and give them a common name. Where does this common name come from? The name for grouped taskbar buttons comes from the version resource of the underlying program. You can view this directly by viewing the properties of the executable program and looking on the Version tab.

To set this property for your own programs, attach a version resource and set the name you want to display as the FileDescription property.

Category
Old New Thing
Topics
Code

Author

Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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