Windows 11 will celebrate its third birthday in a few months. While Microsoft already addressed quite a lot of complaints from customers, some things remain stubbornly unchanged, such as the ability to move the taskbar to the top or sides of your screen. Microsoft once said that that thing is not important, so it appears that third-party apps are the only cure.
Now, thanks to a new third-party mod, you can finally have your taskbar placed on the left.
Moving Windows 11"s taskbar from its traditional place is possible thanks to a new Windhawk module fittingly called "Vertical Taskbar for Windows 11." It is open-source and available for free on the official Windhawk website (via Deskmodder). To make it work, you need to download Windhawk and then install the mod itself. After that, the taskbar will move to the right, giving you more vertical space for your content (you can find the wallpaper below here).
It is worth noting that the mod is not perfect. It has a few interesting quirks. The system tray and app badges are rotated 90 degrees (get ready to twist your head to the right to check time), the Start menu still pops at the middle of the screen, windows fly upward when minimizing or restoring, and jump lists appear in random places. Also, it is not compatible with other taskbar mods and you cannot move the taskbar to the right.
The mod was just released, so maybe some improvements will arrive in future updates. For now, users will have to settle for this rather crude but still working version.
According to the official description, the mod works with Windows 11 versions 22H2 and 23H2. There is no information on whether it works with Windows 11 version 21H2 or the upcoming Windows 11 version 24H2, which, as we know, is not very friendly to some UI customization apps.
Microsoft, just let us move the taskbar already!