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BUG: Clicking on taskbar preview intermittently refuses to bring a window to the foreground

Something has happened to Windows 11 Professional within the last two weeks that has made the taskbar window switching no longer work reliably. It sometimes works just like it should, and seemingly at random it does not work.

As you know, the taskbar categorizes windows so that for example open folders are all under a single Explorer icon, browser windows are all under a browser icon, etc. When you mouse over an icon, it displays a preview of all the windows, and then you can click one of the previews to bring that window to the front. This function has stopped working reliably within the last two weeks, i.e. some time in March 2025. Clicking on the preview simply does nothing. But the most mysterious part is that it only sometimes does this. Not every time. There are no error messages or Windows error sounds. I have failed to pinpoint all of the different instances of reproducibility, but it seems that the easiest way to reproduce this bug is to:

  1. Have a folder open with Windows Explorer in the background.

  2. Right-click Windows Explorer and open any pinned folder, for example Pictures. Click away so it goes into the background

  3. As a result of clicking away from the window, the icon in the taskbar receives a red coloring, like it's busy or there's a dialog window

  4. In this point, you can mouse over the icon and see the previews of your two Explorer windows, but clicking on those previews will not bring forward either of the windows

That is the most reliable method of reproducing the bug, but it also happens in many other instances that I can't effectively pin down the cause of. Also, rarely even those reproduction steps do not actually replicate the bug.

Most often the problem causes irritation when handling single windows. When there is e.g. only one folder open in the background and I try to hover over its preview to switch to it, nothing happens. I can only bring the folder forward by clicking the actual Explorer icon, not the preview. That's how I discovered those reproduction steps, because when the problem occurs with two windows, clicking on the icon can't solve the problem because it won't bring up any window when there's multiple.

I have made no changes to the configuration or operation of Windows this month and the bug only started occurring this month, therefore I suspect that a Windows update has introduced this bug and it needs to be investigated.

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I have similar issue. When trying to expand a window minimized on the task bar, hovering on it shows the preview but clicking the desired window does not expand it (all previews just go away). It seems that if you right click a window on the taksbar, then the behavior is fixed for some amount of time although it is not clear what triggers the misbehavior again. Happens on 2 different computers since the last 24H2 update (March 12 2025)... MS please make an effort!

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I have the same problem except it happens more often when there are multiple windows minimized. I have found that right clicking in the minimized window on the taskbar and selecting "restore" or "maximize" still works.

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Yep, behavior changed around a week or so ago, on all my Windows machines, so I'm assuming it was in a recent update.

One thing I've noticed, though: if you first click on the application icon in the taskbar, a subsequent click on one of the preview windows will work correctly. But you shouldn't need to: the old (and imo correct) behavior was to allow you to select one of the preview windows with a single click after hovering over the application icon in the taskbar.

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I am also experiencing this behavior on Win 11 24H2. This is on my personal machine I just upgraded from windows 10. My work PC, which isn't running 24H2 doesn't seem to have this problem.

Launching an app anyplace else other than a pinned app on the taskbar, will cause the taskbar to get into this state where clicking the window preview of another running app does not bring it to the foreground, does not allow it to be clicked to close, and does not register clicks on media controls. The behavior can be triggered by launching an app from the start menu, or from the command line, or by double clicking a file. It's not a profile setting, as I created a new local user, it behaved the same way. I also went into safe mode, and it too behaved similarly.

I found out the same work-around as KaitainJones of first clicking the taskbar in an empty spot and then clicking a preview window to bring the window to the foreground would work around the issue and bring the taskbar back into working state, but only until another app is launched anyplace other than a pinned taskbar app.

Training my brain to make two clicks when previously one worked is annoying. Additionally trying to remember not to click on the preview because it doesn't work if I don't first remember to click an empty spot on the taskbar is also annoying. A slight workaround I found was to install the Windhawk app and the "Cycle through taskbar windows on click" and "Disable Taskbar Thumbnails" mods which allows me to just click the app's icon to switch windows and prevents me from accidentally trying to use the previews which don't work anymore.

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Question Info

Last updated April 27, 2025 Views 223 Applies to: