Recently we posted about adjusting Taskbar thumbnail delay time. In Windows 7, whenever you hover your mouse cursor over a running application's button in Taskbar, Windows shows a small thumbnail of running application with a close button.
And if you hover your mouse cursor over the small thumbnail, Windows shows a live preview of the running application and makes all other running applications windows transparent.
Today we are sharing a small registry trick which can be used to adjust the live preview delay time. You can set the delay time to 1000 milliseconds (or 1 second) to get the live previews faster.
So here we start the tutorial:
1. Type regedit in RUN or Startmenu Searchbox and press Enter. It'll open Registry Editor.
2. Now go to following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
3. In right-side pane, create a new DWORD value ThumbnailLivePreviewHoverTime
4. Now you'll need to set its value to your desired delay time. Double-click on it and select "Base" as Decimal and enter the desired value. Remember the value should be given in milliseconds. Set the value to 1000 for best experience.
You can use any value but it should be greater than 0.
5. That's it. Log off or restart your system to take effect.
NOTE: If you want to restore default settings, simply delete "ThumbnailLivePreviewHoverTime" DWORD value created in Step 3.
BONUS TIP: If you want to completely turn off Live previews, visit this link.
PS: If you want a ready-made script to do the task automatically, download following ZIP file, extract it and run the extracted REG file. It'll ask for confirmation, accept it:
This article was posted by VG in following section: Windows 7.
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MAGNUMHEART
howdy vishal. how can i make the taskbar delay time much faster
if taskbar is in auto-hide. ^^
MAGNUMHEART
what is the default time for this tweak. does this tweak makes it faster or
more delayed. ^^ thx. ok thx for the info.
VG
^^ To set default time, simply delete the DWORD value as mentioned in NOTE section.
Scott
Hey Vishal.
Is there a way to reduce the delay when you hit alt-tab to switch between open windows? There is an initial delay when you first hit alt-tab but then additional alt-tabs once the task switcher is open are instantaneous. I want it instantaneous on the initial alt-tab.
Thanks.
Liam
With this being referred to as the "taskbar preview", what would you call the mouseover popup preview we see when we are viewing a list of threads in a forum? To be more specific, when we view a list of forum threads and mouseover each one, we can see the contents or first few sentences in that specific thread the cursor is over. Unfortunately it disappears after 3 seconds or so. Then you have to mouseover a different thread just to activate or reset the mouseover on the original thread to view it again. I realize this is a somewhat different subject so if anyone could just tell me what its called or referred to, I will search somewhere else for it. Im just having trouble getting the right words together for a search. Ultimately I'd like to have the preview last longer during a mouseover within a list of threads... or anything really.
Thanks guys
Drease
For me this tweak didn't work. The name for the DWORD value which did work is: ExtendedUIHoverTime
Also, it's not necessary to completely reboot your pc. Restarting the "explorer" process works fine too.
Luis Alfredo Moutinho
Dear Michael,
The THUMBNAIL preview in my taskbar simply vanished. Now I have only multiple TEXT preview.
I have spent one full day looking for help in the Internet.
If I log off and on with a different username Just created for the purpose of checking it) ... the thumbnails are there. It would be a tremendous task to remake my desktop as another user.
Yes, I have already tryed usuccessfully the Taskbar Tweaker!
Perhaps you have already heard of that problem, and has something to help me restore the defaults.
Many, many thanks
Luis Alfredo
Alex
I can confirm what Drease said. The DWORD name should be ExtendedUIHoverTime and changes can be seen just by restarting Explorer.
Also, putting 0 sets it to the default time, therefore 1 is the smallest value. It's super snappy now!
VG
^^ Its here:
http://www.askvg.com/how-to-adjust-taskbar-thumbnail-delay-time-in-windows-7/
Simo
@MAGNUMHEART:
Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Ease of Access Center\Make the computer easier to see
Turn off all unnecessary animations.
This will remove taskbar delay when auto-hide is used.