Windows 11 Taskbar Issue

[DawnB]

I'm currently using Paint Shop Pro 2021 & with Windows 11, if I have more then 1 image open & I have the program minimized or in the background I have to pick a specific image before PSP will come back up. If I only have 1 image open this does not happen. I know this is due to the forced grouping of the Window 11 taskbar, but I have other programs that don't do this even with multi files open. Is there a way to fix it? Does 2022 do this too? It's very annoying. PSP is the only program I have that requires extra steps to bring the program back into focus from the taskbar with multiple files open.

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[Ken Berry]

Hi Dawn and welcome to the forum.

When I first read your post, I wondered if the result you were getting was because you have moved the Start button from the default center of the task bar over to the left corner. Others have reported overlapping problems with other programs when this is done, and MS is believed to be working on a fix.

But I just opened PSP 2022 and see what you mean. With two or more images open and PSP minimized, I'm afraid you have to click on one of the images which appears when you hover the mouse over the task bar PSP icon to get the program to open, rather than being able to just click on the task bar icon itself to maximize the program. I hadn't noticed this before with either PSP 2021 or 2022 because I have only recently upgraded to Win 11 and seldom minimize PSP with 2 or more images open. Hopefully someone else may have a suggestion how to get around this...

[Forriner]

It happens in Windows 10 too, PSP X7 and both 2021 and 2022. My guess would be it's Corel's choice, not Windows'.

[Jean-Luc]

It is perhaps a Windows behavior. I tried Microsoft Word. I have two Word documents open. I minimize the program. When I click on the Word icon in the taskbar, Word doesn't pop up. I need to click on one of the document's thumbnails (they appear when hovering on the Word icon) to open Word. I tried with PSP X7 and the same behavior was observed (PSP doesn't open).

[LeviFiction]

Hold SHIFT when clicking on PSP and it'll just open the program. This trick takes advantage of the fact that PSP no longer allows multiple copies of PSP to be running at the same time. When you hold SHIFT and click on a taskbar program Windows tries to open a second instance, since PSP doesn't allow that it just re-focuses on the main program.

Other than that there is no other option and both Corel and Windows are to blame as they each play their part.

Corel chose to register each image with the taskbar so that it can show each image and let you choose. Corel is purposely choosing to use a feature that is meant to be helpful. Windows and the taskbar apparently don't offer a method for defining a default tab/window to open when clicking on the taskbar icon forcing you to choose which of the collapsed buttons you were aiming for. So it's technically both as Corel doesn't have to use the feature, but if it does it has no ability to tell Windows Taskbar to act differently.

This came up 9 years ago as well. Several programs were looked at to compare against. Photoshop would register only open windows (not tabs) and when you minimized it would de-register the individual images leaving only the main program preview to open, bypassing this limitation. GIMP by default uses single window mode which doesn't register each image. But if you turn off single window mode then each image gets its own window and you have to pick. Same with some of its dialog windows.

[Ken Berry]

Interesting. Once PSP is open again after using Shift and showing the two images, I notice that using the X to close the program first closes the active image, and leaves PSP open with the other image still showing; and you have to click on X again to close everything down.

[DawnB]

So it seems this is a windows issue, because in Windows 10 if you turned program grouping off PSP would open just open by clicking the icon to bring it back up even with multi images open, but with Grouping on (in Win10) you had to pick a image from the popup. Since Windows 11 doesn't have a way to turn grouping off I guess there is no work around (expect holding shift, which then causes extra steps to close the program) in Word it actually opens separate programs windows with each file. PSP doesn't but it seems to register each image as a separate window unlike other programs I tested with. This is why I've always turned off Taskbar grouping, I really hope they add the option to Windows 11.