How to turn on “always on top” for windows 10’s task manager

Taskbar is undoubtedly one of the most useful features as it allows you to launch applications directly, without needing you to go to its location to open it. However, you may sometimes want to hide the taskbar if you want to play games in full screen or watch movies hassle-free. In such cases, you may not want the taskbar to be always on top. But, sometimes the taskbar simply remains on top and especially after a Windows 10 update, it just doesn’t budge. So, how do you fix the Windows 10 taskbar always on top issues? Let’s see how.

Table of Contents

Method 1: By Restarting the Windows Explorer through Task Manager

Step 1: Right-click on the Taskbar and click on Task Manager.

Step 2: In the Task Manager window, under the Processes tab, go to the Windows processes section and look for Windows Explorer.

Right-click on it and select Restart.

Now, exit Task Manager and you can now view videos and play games in full screen back again, without the Taskbar on top.

Method 2: By Enabling the “Automatically Hide the Taskbar in Desktop” Mode in Settings

Step 1: Press the Win + I keys together on your keyboard to open the Settings window.

Step 2: In the Settings window, click on Personalisation.

Step 3: In the next window, click on Taskbar on the left side of the pane.

Step 4: Now, go to the right side of the window and turn on both Automatically hide the taskbar in desktop mode and Automatically hide the taskbar in tablet mode options.

Now, close the Settings window and the taskbar should hide now. It still keeps running in the background and only shows when you move your cursor to the bottom of the screen.

Method 3: By Changing the Taskbar Location On Screen and Back

Step 1: Right-click on the Taskbar and click on Taskbar settings.

Step 2: On the right side of the window, scroll down and change the Taskbar location on screen field to anything you wish and close the Settings window.

Now, go back to the Taskbar settings again and change the Taskbar location on screen option back to what it was earlier.

Now, exit the Settings window and check if your taskbar always on top issue is resolved.

Method 4: By Unpinning Applications from Taskbar

Many users have found that most of the times, the taskbar always on top issue is due to certain or all applications pinned on the taskbar. Therefore, unpin a certain application (which you may have added recently) or all the applications one by one from the taskbar.

Step 1: Right-click on the pinned applications on taskbar and select Unpin from taskbar.

Now, your taskbar always on top issue should be gone.

*Note – You can pin the application again to the taskbar and it should not create problems again.

Method 5: By Enabling the Cascade Windows Option

Step 1: Right-click on the taskbar and select Cascade windows to enable it.

Now, the taskbar should not always stay on top.

Alternatively, you can also try disabling the Hangouts extension from being Always on top in the Chrome browser (if Chrome is your default browser). Sometimes, the Hangouts extension can create the taskbar always on top issue on your Windows 10 PC.

Thanks to the Windows taskbar, we can manage and work with our applications with ease. How to make taskbar always on top Windows 10 to enjoy the convenience all time? This post offers a tutorial. By the way, if you want to manage your disks and partitions with ease on Windows 10, MiniTool Partition Wizard is worth trying.

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Windows 10 Taskbar Always on Top

First introduced with Microsoft Windows 95, the Windows taskbar can be found in all subsequent versions of Windows and it allows you to manage your applications with ease.

The taskbar is always located at the bottom of the desktop (you can also change its location). On the left side of the taskbar, you can find a Windows icon and a search icon, while you can see a notification area on its right side.

How to make taskbar always on top Windows 10? It is quite easy.

Step 1: Launch the taskbar settings window. There are two ways:

Way 1: Right-click the blank space on your taskbar and then choose the Task settings option.

Way 2: Press Windows + I to open the Settings window. Then, select Personalization and Taskbar.

Step 2: Look at the pop-up window and locate the Automatically hide the taskbar in desktop mode feature. Once find, turn off the feature.

After the two steps, your taskbar will be always on the top as long as your computer is in desktop mode.

Note the operations on how to make taskbar always on Windows 7/8 are different from the above. To make the taskbar always on tap on Windows 7/8, you can refer to the following tutorials.

On Windows 7:

1. Right-click the blank space of the taskbar and then select the Properties
2. On the Properties window, navigate to the Taskbartab and then uncheck the box next to Auto-hide the taskbar.
3. Click the Applybutton and OK button to execute and save the changes.

On Windows 8:

The operations on making the taskbar always on top on Windows 7 and Windows 8 are quite similar. The only difference is in the first step. On Windows 8, to access the taskbar settings, you need to open the Start menu and then select the Desktop option.

Is Windows 8.1 still supported? Microsoft will no longer support this version of Windows since January 2023.

How to Disable Taskbar Always on Top on Windows 10?

If you want to get access to larger screen estate, you can disable your taskbar always on top. The disabling process is quite easy: on Windows 10, toggle on the Automatically hide the taskbar in desktop mode feature on taskbar settings window. On Windows 7/8, just tick the box next to the Auto-hide the taskbar option.

Bottom Line

Making your taskbar always on top can let you switch programs with ease. So, have you successfully made your taskbar always on top?

Making the taskbar always on top can lead to a smaller screen estate. To get a larger screen estate, you just need to toggle on Automatically hide the taskbar in desktop mode. If your taskbar does not hide in full screen, please refer to Fix Taskbar Won’t Hide in Fullscreen Windows 10 (6 Tips).

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Position: Columnist

Vicky is a website editor who has been writing tech articles since she was graduated from university. Most of her articles talk about Windows PC and hard disk issues. Some of her articles also touch on YouTube usage and issues.

During her spare time, she likes to spend time reading, watching videos, and sitting on her Yoga mat to relax.

Taskbar can be quite convenient for us to launch applications whenever we need. But sometimes we may want to hide it for full-screen play or just for larger screen space. Whether to keep the taskbar always on the top or hide it depends on your needs.

There are a few users reporting that after Windows 10 update, the taskbar always shows up on top of all program windows and they are wondering how to disable that, while other users might be curious about how to keep the taskbar always on top in their Windows 7/8 and even Windows 10. Here you are. This how-to article will show you the ways of both keeping and hiding your taskbar in Windows.

Part 1. How to Make Taskbar Always on Top in Windows 10, 8, 7

The setting of making taskbar always on top in Windows 10 is a little bit different from that in Windows 8 and 7. Choose the one that suits your system version.

1. Uncheck Automatically Hide the Taskbar in Desktop Mode (For Windows 10)
Step 1. Right-click the taskbar on a blank space and select “Taskbar settings”. Or you can also open the “Taskbar settings” through: Start menu > Settings > Personalization, and select “Taskbar” in the left menu.

Step 2. Toggle off “Automatically hide the taskbar in desktop mode”. By turning off this feature, as long as your computer is in desktop mode, the taskbar will always on top.

Step 3. This is an extra step in which you can choose the location of the taskbar. In the option of “Taskbar location on screen”, you are able to determine where the taskbar appears, at the bottom of the whole screen, or the top, or even along one of the sides.

2. Uncheck Auto-hide the Taskbar (For Windows 8/7)
Step 1. In Windows 7, right-click on the blank space of the taskbar and select “Properties”. In Windows 8, open Start menu and select “Desktop”.

Step 2. Locate “Taskbar” tab, and then uncheck “Auto-hide the taskbar”.

Step 3. Click “Apply” at the bottom right of the window and click “OK” to save the settings.

Part 2. How to Disable Taskbar Always on Top in Windows 10, 8, 7

Obviously, the opposite side of turning on is turning off. You can simply try the two ways mentioned in Part 1 to hide your taskbar: In Windows 10, toggle on “Automatically hide the taskbar in desktop mode” in “Taskbar settings”; in Windows 7/8, check “Auto-hide the taskbar” under the “Taskbar” tab either in “Properties” or “Desktop”.
If these solutions unfortunately haven’t helped you solve the problem, or if the taskbar still appears on top of all other windows after you’ve turned on the auto-hide, here are other three workarounds to help you disable the taskbar always on top in Windows 10, and Windows 7/8.

Solution 1. Unpin Applications on Taskbar
Unpin the applications or windows you’ve fixed them on the taskbar. If the problem is fixed after the unpinning, you may pin them back on the taskbar again. This solution is both available in either Windows 10 or Windows 7/8.

Solution 2. Cascade Windows
If you are working on Windows 10 and the Solution 1 doesn’t help you, you can try this one:
Right-click the taskbar on a blank space.
Click on “Cascade windows” to turn it on.

Solution 3. Reset Explorer.exe

In Windows 7/8, there is also another workaround worth trying: reset the explorer.

• Right click on the blank space of the taskbar and select “Task Manager”.
• In the pop-up window, locate “explorer.exe”. (If you don’t see that, click on “More information”)
• Right click on “explorer.exe” and select End Processor. Then click File to add a new task of “explorer.exe”.

Do you get along well with your taskbar with the workarounds mentioned in this article? If you find this how-to guide is helpful, welcome to share it with your friends and family!

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Well that’s about a worthless article. OF course it is on top when you uncheck the option to hide it. I want it to auto-hide but when it pops up, I want it to be on top, duh. What an idiotic article and a waste of time.

agreed, I simple want it to go behind everything and be and stay on the desk top level. I dont need it always on top.

This article is talking about Windows Update perma-topping the taskbar no matter what you do.

Manually closing explorer.exe and reopening it fixed this issue for me. Now I can finally watch movies full screen without the taskbar. Thanks 🙂

Except it comes up as the only answer for those of us who want to auto-hide the task bar, but are sick and tired of when we mouse down to it, it doesn’t show up, because it’s coming up BEHIND the explorer/whatever windows that are there, so we can’t see it.
Assuming it’s coming up at all when we mouse over where it should be.

Task Manager is an indispensable tool in Windows 10, and it’s good to keep it handy while troubleshooting your PC. With one simple setting, Task Manager will always remain visible on screen—no matter how many windows you have open. Here’s how.

First, we need to bring up Task Manager. In Windows 10, right-click the taskbar, and select “Task Manager” from the menu that pops up.

If you see the simple Task Manager interface, click “More Details” at the bottom of the window.

In the full Task Manager window, click Options > Always on Top to activate always-on-top mode. A checkbox will appear to the left of the option.

After that, the Task Manager window will always stay on top of all open windows.

The feature will stay activated even if you close Task Manager and reopen it again. And if you’d like to disable the “Always on Top” feature later, simply uncheck the item in the “Options” menu. Very handy!

How to make the taskbar go away? When you don’t need the taskbar on Windows tablet and desktop mode, you can hide toolbar on Windows from taskbar settings.

Why is my taskbar not hiding? you didn’t make taskbar disappear from taskbar settings, how can you hide your taskbar? Customize taskbar settings from Windows taskbar settings so that you can hide taskbar on Windows 10.

• Part 1: How to Make Task Manager Always on Top
• Part 2: How to Hide Taskbar Windows 10
• Part 3: How to Minimize Taskbar Windows 10

Part 1: How to Make Task Manager Always on Top

Do you know that you can not only make the taskbar on the bar, you can make the taskbar on the top/left/right of the Windows screen? Make the task manager always on top to have a new screen lock for Windows. It’s easy to change the taskbar manager location on the Windows screen.

Step 1: On the home screen of Windows, find out the search box from the left bottom corner, enter “taskbar” to the search box, click on Enter key to find out the taskbar from Windows. If the search box doesn’t appear on the Windows taskbar, tap on Start icon, then click on Settings, enter the taskbar letter to the search box to find out the taskbar settings interface.
Step 2: From taskbar settings, find out the “Taskbar location on screen”, you’ll find that there are four different taskbar locations on screen: Bar/Top/Left/Right. Switch to Top to make taskbar on the top of Windows screen.

Of course, you can use the same method to make task manager to the left or right side of the Windows screen. Move the taskbar to any location you want by following the steps above.

Part 2: How to Hide Taskbar Windows 10

How to hide taskbar when full screen? When you switch to desktop or tablet mode, how to hide taskbar Windows 10? Generally, Windows 10 taskbar always on top or bar if you didn’t turn on the automatically hiding feature on taskbar settings.

The taskbar on top of screen or in the bar of screen and don’t hide automatically unless you’ve turned on the automatic hiding feature from taskbar settings.

Step 1: Go to Start from the left bottom corner, tap on Settings, then enter taskbar to the search box and click Enter to find out the taskbar settings on Windows.
Step 2: Turn on “Automatically hide the taskbar in desktop mode” and “Automatically hide the taskbar in the tablet mode”.

Once enabled those two features from Windows taskbar settings, the taskbar will disappear when you’re in desktop mode and tablet mode, it means the taskbar manager appears only when you move the pointer on the taskbar area, or the taskbar won’t appear. It’s the best way to hide taskbar Windows 10 when playing games.

Part 3: How to Minimize Taskbar Windows 10

It’s a little bit inconvenient when you hide taskbar Windows. You can minimize the taskbar to make the taskbar smaller and take less location on Windows screen.

You have two ways to minimize taskbar Windows:

First one: Locate the taskbar settings on Windows by entering the taskbar letter to the search box to Windows settings, from taskbar settings, turn on “Use small taskbar buttons”, your taskbar turns into the smallest size in the bar or on the top of Windows screen.

Second one: You can also customize the size of the taskbar, but first of you shouldn’t lock taskbar, from taskbar settings interface, turn off “Lock the taskbar”, then move the pointer to the border of the taskbar, when the pointer turns into a double arrow, drag the border to the size you want.

The taskbar settings make the taskbar more personalized, you can change taskbar settings from Windows settings as you like.

In this article, we will guide you how to install Task Manager floating above other applications on Windows 10. Like how you keep Calculator floating, Windows 10 has a built-in feature that allows Task Manager to float on top of applications. or another program.

You can also use a third-party tool to keep Task Manager floating on your Windows 10 desktop.

Keeping the Task Manager afloat comes in handy in some cases. For example, it will help you keep track of RAM, CPU usage of running applications and processes …

How to install Task Manager is always floating above other applications on Windows 10

1. Use the Task Manager Options menu

First, you need to open the Task Manager by right-clicking the Taskbar and selecting Task Manager or using the Ctrl + Shift + Esc key combination . If Task Manager opens in collapsed mode, you need to click More details to open it in full mode, displaying full menus.

Then click the Options menu. You can see the Always on top option . Click this option, Task Manager will always float on the screen. When you want to turn it off, just click it again.

2. Use the Task Manager icon in the system tray

Another way to have the Task Manager always floating on the desktop is to use its icon in the Taskbar’s system tray.

You open the Task Manager then right-click the Task Manager icon in the system tray. Next, click on the Always on top option .

3. Use key combinations

This is one of the easiest ways to get Task Manager to stay afloat in other applications. This option uses the Task Manager’s Options menu, but you just need to press the keyboard shortcut.

First, you need to open Task Manager in More details mode. Then, press Alt + O to open the Options menu and press A and Task Manager will always be visible on other apps.

4. Use third-party tools

There are a number of free third-party tools for Windows 10 for installing an app window that always floats above other apps. With these tools, you can install any application that emerges on the Windows 10 screen including Task Manager.

• 5 tools to install applications always floating on the screen

Hopefully this article will be of help to you and invite you to refer to other great tips on Quantum:

Windows 8 and Windows 10 have a new Task Manager app. It looks completely different compared to Windows 7’s Task Manager and has different features. It comes with a number of options that can be customized by the user, including the ‘Minimize On Use’ feature.

Task Manager in Windows 10 comes with neat features. It can analyze the performance of various hardware components and also shows you all the processes running in your user session, grouped by app or process type.

Windows 10’s Task Manager includes a performance graph and startup impact calculation. It is able to control which apps launch during startup. There is a special tab “Startup” which is designed to manage startup apps.

Tip: You can save your time by creating a special shortcut to open the Task Manager directly on the Startup tab.

Also, it is possible to make Task Manager show the command line of apps on the Processes, Details and Startup tabs. When enabled, it will allow you to quickly see which folder an app is launched from, and what its command line arguments are. For reference, see the article

In addition to these great features, Task Manager is able to show DPI awareness for processes.

Windows 10 version 1903 adds more useful features to Task Manager. There is a new menu command under “Options” that allows specifying a default tab.

For reference, see the following article:

When you switch to an app or window from the Task Manager, it automatically minimizes to the taskbar by default. The Switch to command can be found in the context menu on the Processes tab in Task Manager.

This works for classic Desktop apps, but switching to Store app doesn’t minimize the Task Manager. It is possible to change this behavior, so switching to both Desktop and Store apps won’t minimize the Task Manager. Here’s how.

To Disable Minimize On Use For Task Manager in Windows 10,

1. Open Task Manager. If it looks as follows, switch it to the full view using the “More details” link in the bottom right corner.
2. In the menu, click Options.
3. From the Options submenu select Minimize on use to uncheck it. This will disable the feature.
4. To re-enable it, select the Options > Minimize on use command again to turn on (check) it.

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About Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer from Russia who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Microsoft is working on two new features for Windows 11’s Task Manager: Microsoft Edge integration and Eco Mode. Microsoft Edge integration is now rolling out to devices running Windows 11 Build 22000.282, while the Eco Mode feature is expected to arrive later this year or early next year.

To ensure the browser doesn’t reduce the performance of your machine, Windows 11’s Task Manager can now better manage resources used by the Edge browser. As you’re probably aware, managing browsers using the Task Manager can be very frustrating and Microsoft wants to improve the experience.

Microsoft Edge 94 comes with several improvements for Windows 11’s Task Manager to better represent the browser processes. On Windows 10 or older, when you open Task Manager and tap on the Microsoft Edge processes tab, you will come across a list of processes using the generic name “Microsoft Edge”.

Currently, it is impossible to close tabs or extensions using the Task Manager. Thanks to the new update, Task Manager can now display a detailed view of the browser processes.

This is possible due to Microsoft Edge’s multi-process architecture:

• The browser now includes the GPU process and crashpad process in the Task Manager.
• For extensions and plugins, Task Manager will now display the process type and the name of the extension.
• Tabs will now include the site, icon and topic name. For InPrivate tabs, the site name and icon will be replaced with a generic icon to reflect the private browsing session. For subframes like advertisements, you will see ‘subframe’ and subframe’s URL in the Task Manager.
• Task Manager can now also list workers and service workers.

For some services like Microsoft Office web, item (tab) would share the same process with other items. You can click on the arrow to expand the process and see the other items of Microsoft Office.

Microsoft is testing this new feature for Task Manager and it will begin rolling out to more Windows 11 users in the coming weeks.

Eco mode for Windows 11

Microsoft is also believed to be working on a new Eco mode for Task Manager. With this feature, you can take action against resource-intensive apps. If you turn on Eco mode for an app, Microsoft will reduce the priority of the process to ‘low’, allowing other apps to get priority for system resources.

Although some Windows apps have the built-in option to enable ‘always on top’ behavior, you can’t get this option for every window unless it’s designed that way. As soon as you click away to the desktop or another window, the current one loses focus and moves to the background. Window On Top is a minuscule Windows application that lets users set any window to stay on top of others at all times. The application doesn’t have a GUI and quietly resides on the system tray without intervening with your workflow. It can prove to be useful if you want to keep a certain folder or application – such as a media player, document editor, photo viewer, etc. – constantly in view as you complete other tasks throughout the OS. Read on for further details.

Apart from being portable – which means it doesn’t require installation – Window On Top is extremely lightweight (around 850KB). So, it shouldn’t hog your system’s resources.

The usage of the application is fairly brief and simple, too. While it is running, all you have to do is select the window that you want to keep on top and hit the Ctrl + T keyboard shortcut. Hitting the hotkey again will deactivate the behaviour for the currently selected window. The current version of the application doesn’t allow customizing the global hotkey, so you’ll have to make do with the default combination.

To get started, download the app via the download link provided at the end of the post and extract its EXE file using an archive tool like 7-Zip or CoffeeZip. Upon its launch, Window On Top will start running in the background, adding an icon to the system tray.

Right-clicking the system tray icon provides you with a couple of basic controls. ‘Suspend Hotkeys’ allows you to disable the hotkey that is used to trigger the ‘always on top’ behavior in windows. ‘Pause Script’ temporarily disables the script that drives said behavior, returning all windows to normal. Simply select the aforementioned options again to undo these actions.

I successfully tested the ‘always on top’ behavior on different types of windows, including dialog windows, web browsers, the Task Manager, properties sheets and even the Calculator.

Window On Top should prove to be an excellent companion for users who frequently find the need for window management solutions to reduce confusion and speed up their work flow. It works on Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8. Testing was carried out on Windows 8 Pro.