How to use a vertical taskbar on Windows 11

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"When you think about having the taskbar on the right or the left, all of a sudden the reflow and the work that all of the apps have to do to be able to understand the environment is just huge."

Yes, I've seen several (several, not "all", not even many) instances where apps misbehave with a vertical taskber in Windows < 11. Mostly when they think the screen side edge is still the physical edge and draw their window over or under the taskbar, or misunderstand the smaller maximum width they now have to use. Most, however, seem to cope just fine and for those few that don't, it's a very minor inconvenience. Android apps have to cope with screen rotation, never mind a moved taskbar... come on Microsoft!

It's just a poor attempt at an excuse from MS, which isn't interested in users' interests in the slightest. Even less than they were decades ago.

Adopted the vertical taskbar almost a month ago . . . was waiting desperately for this because of the dearth of vertical real estate on my ultra-wide display.

Was pleased in the beginning . . . this was saving quite some space, but was not visually as appealing as the default horizontal taskbar (felt asymmetrical, as well.)

Since it was a matter of function over form, opted to auto-hide the vertical taskbar . . . this workaround hid the lopsidedness (for most part.)

Last week, I restored the taskbar to it's default horizontal position, but with auto-hide enabled . . . this solution works best, for me (functionally & cosmetically.) 

2 hours ago, UberGeek said:

Last week, I restored the taskbar to it's default horizontal position, but with auto-hide enabled . . . this solution works best, for me (functionally & cosmetically.)

Thanks for that suggestion. Have done the same on my Windows 10 desktop after I read your reply.

Much better, though I've had a few "OMG, where's the taskbar gone... oh yeah, that's right" moments , but am getting used to it now and love it.

I used to do that (bottom bar, auto-hidden) but found it far worse for apps getting confused than the left-hand bar. I had apps going over and preventing the bar showing in front of them even when it was opened, preventing it opening altogether until I moved the app window up, apps stopping short of the bottom when expanded to full screen, and other issues. Plus I didn't like the frequent, glitchy slowness I would sometimes get when hovering over to open the bar up again or having to guess where the icon I wanted to click was going to be.

Admittedly that was some years ago now so perhaps most of that improved. My impatience waiting for it to open and playing guess the icon position when I'm in a hurry though... that hasn't improved with age.

I was happy with a static, default position on a 16:10 single monitor. When using dual monitors I had the bar vertical on the left monitor, and when I had to 'upgrade' finally to a 16:9 because I couldn't find a good 16:10 I could afford, the vertical bar was a must for me.

Whichever... I've always used TrueLaunchBar to enhance the taskbar with its pop-out, nested menus and widgets. Despite being first launched in XP days, and not updated since Windows 7 I think, it works perfectly all the way up to and including Windows 10. It still works in 11, mostly, but can't dock into the Windows taskbar properly in that so acts as a floating bar.

This is my taskbar showing one of the pop-outs from TLB. I don't usually have icons on the desktop itself except for temporary ones that I'm in the middle of things with, like these:

@Mutton  Your experience with autohide matches my own from years ago & was also the reason why I reverted back to static taskbar (within 24 hours.)

However, the present autohide I'm using is provided within the Start11 program . . . it's not perfect, but vastly better than the native Windows autohide.

The one issue I have with this Start11 autohide is that the hidden taskbar refuses to be invoked when any other active foreground window/program is in full screen mode.

Didn't find the time to report this annoyance to the Stardock Developer . . . FWIW, this behavior is in keeping with the Windows protocol & not really a "bug".