You can now use Windows 11 with vertical taskbars, though the feat requires use of a third-party app. Stardock just rolled out an update to Start11 that brings support for vertical taskbars. Following the update, you can place the taskbar on the left or right side of your screen. Clicking on the Start icon will summon a Start menu that fits alongside the vertical taskbar.
Stardock noted in its blog post about the update that vertical taskbars were a highly requested feature. I’m sure that Stardock has received direct feedback on the topic, but I don’t have access to those figures. Based on the fact that over 55,000 people viewed a single Microsoft community post about vertical taskbars on Windows 11 and that many have gone to Reddit to request the feature, I think it’s safe to say many people want vertical taskbars on Windows 11.
Windows 10 and previous versions of Windows allowed you to move the taskbar to either side of the screen, but Microsoft removed that functionality when it made Windows 11. An Ask Me Anything (AMA) held by Microsoft shed some light as to way the option was removed.
“When it comes to something like actually being able to move the taskbar to different locations on the screen, there’s a number of challenges with that,” said Microsoft Head of Product Tali Roth. “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.”
Roth admitted that there is a “set of people” that like vertical taskbars but noted the group is small.
Coincidentally, Start11 rolling out support for vertical taskbars comes fresh on the heels of me covering other third-party applications that fix some issues in Windows 11. Earlier this month, I covered Calendar Flyout, which replicates the functionality of the Windows 10 calendar flyout. I wrote about a clone of Mail & Calendar as well, since Microsoft made its own app inoperable.
