Windows 7: Pinned Taskbar Items Disappearing when Program Opens

Hello, I hope you are doing well.

When I open a program that has been pinned to the taskbar, the icon for that program disappears immediately. I understand that this is a feature of Windows 7, but my girlfriend finds it rather annoying. Is there any way to stop this behavior? By the way, I am using the "Never Combine" option for my taskbar.



For example, the first icon pinned in the taskbar is Mozilla Firefox. When I open Firefox, the icon disappears, and only the other pinned icons remain. I would like to change this behavior so that the icon, once pinned, will remain, even if I open the program associated with it.

Thanks,
Vic

i'm not sure thats a feature, i havent heard of anyone having that problem yet. have you by chance hacked any files for custom themes or icons, or played around in the registry?

I have not tweaked anything for my girlfriend's computer yet (this behavior shows up on my own Windows 7 as well though, which I have tweaked). This is with the "Never Combine" option for my taskbar, not the default listing of programs ("Always combine, hide labels"), which seems to make a difference.

I am tinkering with this myself right now and will give any updates I come across.

Thanks,
Vic

What build number?

Windows 7 Professional Build 7600. It's the RTM one, if that helps.

Kind of confusing when you say disappears. Never heard of them disappearing when activated. You mean when the programs icon is closed, it's a small icon like this...



Then when you open the program from the taskbar icon, it morphs into this..



Another example, using a custom Firefox icon, which will change into the original FF icon when activated..





If that's what you mean, that's normal behavior for having Never Combine. I don't think there's a way of changing that, not even sure how you want it to be changed. If she doesn't like it, have her use Always combine, Hide Labels. The icon will basically stay the same closed or open.

The last image in the post above is how I have mine set up and I really like it. When the app is open, you get that little clear box around it so you can tell it's open and when closed, the icon always stays visible in the exact same spot. When you hover on the icon of an open app, it gets colored with the predominant color of the icon. Looks cool, imo. Took a couple of days to get used to this setup but now works great for me.