# Windows 7: How to Restore List View of open windows when you click a Program on Taskbar
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 15, 2020, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611 "2020-11-15T03:54:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611/1 "2020-11-15T03:54:42Z")
My partner allthegood is running Windows Home 7. Until the latest log out / log in, when she clicked a running program’s icon in the taskbar, it showed a list view of open windows. Now, all of a sudden, it shows preview windows, i.e., rectangular visual previews. She wants the list view she’s used to.
I googled some likely phrases and got several instructions. One said to right-click the Desktop and turn Aero off by picking a standard skin like Windows 7 Default or Windows Classic. I read that to her and she did it but it didn’t fix the problem.
I’m not a Windows person myself, I thought Aero was what you got with Windows 7?! That Aero was the name of the Windows 7 interface, with the semi-translucent menus and whatnot?!?
Anyway, could use help from someone who has actually faced this and fixed it. Seems like it ought to be a setting, although by now I’m used to software developers imposing user-interface changes without the option of using the old.
Oh, and she says “Everything looks different… it’s all got roundey edges and stuff”
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### Author:  [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611/2 "2020-11-15T04:06:54Z")
This is marked as a Win 10 trick, but I bet it works in Win 7 and I vaguely remember doing something like this on that OS.
[https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_10-start-winpc/how-do-i-change-taskbar-icon-preview-from/fed816fe-9120-4613-b6f8-ca85bd9a614e](https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-start-winpc/how-do-i-change-taskbar-icon-preview-from/fed816fe-9120-4613-b6f8-ca85bd9a614e)
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611/3 "2020-11-15T04:09:39Z")
I suspect the registry tweak is what the options in this link do. Option 1 is only available in Windows Pro. Option 3 uses a small freeware program that can tweak the Taskbar.
> **[Turn Off Taskbar Thumbnail Previews in Windows 7/8/10](https://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/disable-taskbar-thumbnail-previews-windows/)**
>
> In a previous post, I wrote about why Windows may not be showing taskbar thumbnail previews by default, but instead show just a text list. However, if you do have \[...\]
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611/4 "2020-11-15T04:27:58Z")
Yeah that’s one of the links I followed. The instructions (for doing it without installing 3rd party software) didn’t work. Haven’t tried the 3d party sw yet.
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### Author:  [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611/5 "2020-11-15T04:32:11Z")
Never mind, not sure I understand the issue
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611/6 "2020-11-15T04:33:12Z")
> [@AHunter3](#):
>
> Yeah that’s one of the links I followed. The instructions (for doing it without installing 3rd party software) didn’t work. Haven’t tried the 3d party sw yet.
A lot of people don’t like to touch the registry, so I put up the software. If you’d rather avoid the software, I suspect the registry tweak does the same thing.
I actually suspect it is the registry value that group policy changes. Group policy doesn’t work on Windows Home, but the registry tweaks usually do.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611/7 "2020-11-15T04:41:13Z")
> [@squeegee](#):
>
> This is marked as a Win 10 trick, but I bet it works in Win 7 and I vaguely remember doing something like this on that OS.
>
> [https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_10-start-winpc/how-do-i-change-taskbar-icon-preview-from/fed816fe-9120-4613-b6f8-ca85bd9a614e](https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-start-winpc/how-do-i-change-taskbar-icon-preview-from/fed816fe-9120-4613-b6f8-ca85bd9a614e)
That did it! Thanks!
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### Author:  [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611/8 "2020-11-15T20:26:57Z")
Since the OP’s question has been answered, I’m curious: for something like this that requires editing the registry to fix, how does it get changed in the first place? Especially if the user didn’t do anything more than log out and log back in. If it was an inadvertent mouse click somewhere, you’d think you could do the exact same thing to set it back.
It reminds me of a problem my wife was having with her phone awhile back, where she would accidentally do… something… while putting her phone into her back pocket or pulling it out. All of the colors on her screen would be inverted. And every time it happened, we’d have to Google how to fix it, because it was something four or five levels deep in the settings. And we never could figure out how one little mis-tap or swipe was making it do that, when it took us several deliberate steps to undo it.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611/9 "2020-11-15T20:32:07Z")
Well, I assume (and allthegood assumes) that Windows imposed some kind of update. Although I was under the impression that Aero had been a part of Windows 7 from the beginning? Odd odd odd.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611/10 "2020-11-15T20:37:01Z")
> [@Shoeless](#):
>
> Since the OP’s question has been answered, I’m curious: for something like this that requires editing the registry to fix, how does it get changed in the first place? Especially if the user didn’t do anything more than log out and log back in. If it was an inadvertent mouse click somewhere, you’d think you could do the exact same thing to set it back.
My best guess would be that it’s a tweak that was made in the past (and forgotten), but that got reset by installing or updating something.
> [@](#):
>
> It reminds me of a problem my wife was having with her phone awhile back, where she would accidentally do… something… while putting her phone into her back pocket or pulling it out. All of the colors on her screen would be inverted. And every time it happened, we’d have to Google how to fix it, because it was something four or five levels deep in the settings. And we never could figure out how one little mis-tap or swipe was making it do that, when it took us several deliberate steps to undo it.
That sounds like an accessibility setting or possibly night mode. I would suspect there is some sort of shortcut to enable it, similar to how I can shake my phone twice to turn on the flashlight or swipe a certain way to make my screen smaller (making it easier to reach the top).
Or, possibly, it was set to automatically enable night mode when it got dark, and putting it in your pocket with it on was read as being dark. Though, in that case, I’d expect it to flip back soon after you got it back into the light.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-7-how-to-restore-list-view-of-open-windows-when-you-click-a-program-on-taskbar/925611/11 "2020-11-15T20:51:49Z")
My experience with phone mysteries is that the phone goes live in my pocket and every random jostle while I walk “clicks” on something. maybe it just starts an app and pecks randomly at it. Maybe it starts a text and I’ll have 200 characters of gibberish in the 10 minutes later just from walking around.
And once in awhile it starts down into the Settings app and then Katy bar the Door! who knows what’ll be different when it comes back out of my pocket.