Browser, Opera

How to Disable Taskbar Tabs in Opera 10.5

Opera 10.5 (Evenes) pre-alpha introduced a host of new features including a super-fast JavaScript rendering engine and tighter Windows 7 integration. Support for Jumplists as well as taskbar tabs (or taskbar thumbnails) were added.

Opera-Taskbar-Tabs

Apparently, this is a feature a lot of people appreciate, since both Internet Explorer and Firefox have included it in their recent releases. Personally, I hate taskbar tabs. It almost seems counter intuitive as it eliminates the advantage of organising pages into tabs and windows. In fact it pretty much nullifies the benefits of tabbed browsing. I had disabled this feature almost immediately in Firefox and did the same with Opera 10.5.
Opera 10.5 doesn’t offer any option to disable taskbar tabs, however you can get around this limitation with a simple trick.

Arrow Browse to the location where Opera 10.5 is installed (default: C:Program FilesOpera).
Arrow Right Click on opera.exe and click on Properties.
Arrow Browse to the Compatibility tab and set it to run in capability mode for Windows Vista.

Opera-Disable-Taskbar-Tabs

Arrow Apply changes and launch Opera. Taskbar tabs should now be disabled.

Update: This trick is no longer neccesary, since Opera now includes the option to disable taskbar tabs. Click here and uncheck the “Use Windows 7 Taskbar Thumbnails” option. (Thanks Paolo)

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8 Responses to “How to Disable Taskbar Tabs in Opera 10.5”

  1. On January 13, 2010 at 6:33 am Amal Roy responded with... #

    Thanks So much pallb. I really wanted this hack. The tabs simply popped up every time i moved the mouse near them.
    .-= Amal Roy´s last blog ..How To Save Current Desktop Session & Restore them when Windows Starts =-.

  2. On February 10, 2010 at 6:52 pm Paolo responded with... #

    No need for such a crude workaround:
    opera:config#UserPrefs|UseWindows7TaskbarThumbnails

    • On February 10, 2010 at 8:06 pm Pallab De responded with... #

      Thanks for the suggestion. I guess its time to update this article. This option wasn’t available in the first couple of builds of Opera 10.5 pre-alpha (i.e. at the time of writing).

  3. On March 2, 2010 at 8:26 pm Pan Zupa responded with... #

    Thanks!! New Opera is great but that function just was meant for me because I have always dozens of tabs in my browser and it was real pain in ass.

  4. On March 12, 2010 at 3:57 pm Marko responded with... #

    Thanks for the tip. I completely agree that those thumbnails of tabs are counter intuitive and I hated them. Didn’t know Firefox has them too.
    .-= Marko´s last blog ..Notes (week 8) – Finally done and burned =-.

  5. On March 13, 2010 at 2:10 pm CPuglia responded with... #

    I must be doing something wrong. I click the link in the update, it takes me to the settings menu like it should. I untick the check box, and quit out. After reopening Opera, not only has nothing changed, but the setting box became ticked again. Is there a save button in the Preferences Editor that I’m not seeing?

    • On March 13, 2010 at 2:15 pm CPuglia responded with... #

      And of course, mere minutes later, I see the save button. I should have looked a little harder. Thanks for the tip. There’s plenty of changes in 10.5 I didn’t like, but that’s one taken care of.

      • On March 13, 2010 at 2:28 pm Pallab De responded with... #

        No problem. I am glad that you found the tip useful.

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