How to disable taskbar item rearranging on Windows 10
Items pinned to the taskbar are really easy to rearrange. In fact, you might even do it accidentally. You can click and drag an item and when you release the mouse button, it will be dropped at its new spot. The other items just move out of the way. There’s no way to prevent this from happening out of the box. Even if you lock the taskbar, the pinned apps can still be moved. If you want to disable taskbar items rearranging, you’re going to need a third-party app called 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.
Disable taskbar item rearranging
Download and run 7+ Taskbar Tweaker. The app has a portable version as well as an installable version so pick whichever you want to use. Once the app is running, right-click the app’s icon in the system tray and select ‘Advanced options’.
In the window that opens, go to the OptionsEx tab. Here, double-click the ‘disable_items_drag’ item. In the data column, replace 0 with 1. Click Apply, and then OK.
When you click and drag an item on the taskbar, it will no longer move. It’s locked into place where it is pinned. This will only prevent the pinned items from being moved. You can still pin items to the taskbar and unpin/remove them.
7+ Taskbar Tweaker can also disable item dragging in the system tray. If you look through the other items on the OptionsEx tab, you will find one called ‘Disable_tray_icons_drag’. Double-click it and set its value to 1. Click Apply and then OK. This has one drawback though; you won’t be able to drag items out from the system tray’s overflow menu. If you need to drag an item out, reset the value for this particular item to 0, drag the item out, and then set it back to 1 again.
7+ Taskbar Tweaker is a pretty powerful tool in terms of the options it offers users and it’s fairly easy to use. If there are other aspects of the taskbar that you want to change but can’t find the right tool for the job, look through the options that this app has to offer. If you look through the main options window for 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, you’ll find you can also use the app to reduce the extra space between the pinned items and icons on the taskbar. Additionally, you can change the default behavior of the pinned items so that instead of clicking them once, you have to double-click an item to open it. This is useful if you often accidentally open a pinned app when you do not mean to.
