Taskbar icons now piggy backed

[Peter Kinross]

Windows Creator update.
Bouquets and brickbats to Microsoft
Bouquets.
After over a decade of unwanted and impossible to remove icons on my desktop, EG Homegroup, They have finally gone. THANK YOU MICROSOFT
Brickbats
(1) Now taskbar icons are piggy backed. I used to have each app's icon showing. EG for Access when I had 2 Dbs running these icons would each appear.

Icons.jpg

Now I only have the Access icon - reasonably frustrating!

PiggyBackedIcons.jpg

(2) Now the search bar (not sure what it's correct name is) is more than twice it's previous size. The most valuable real estate on my display is the taskbar and MS go and do this, bit strange to say the least.

FindArea.jpg

Anyone know how do I fix these?
(3) Creators update set 'Edge' as my default browser. Grrrrrrrrrr.
(4) Creators update set Windows Defender running and seems to have delayed the start of BitDefender Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. Now 2 running at the same time. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

[Rudi]

Hi Peter,

To stop windows from combining icons, see here.
To make the Cortana Search Box smaller (or hide it altogether), see here.
To turn off Edge as default browser, see here, and for details, see here.

[Rudi]

Regarding Windows Defender, here is a TenForums guideline to disable it, but before you do, it might be good to review both defenders and determine the difference between the two and see which one has more advantages/benefits. I don't have Win 10, so I cannot comment on the improvements in Windows Defender in this OS version.

[JoeP]

Installing Bitdefender should disable WD. Perhaps uninstalling and re-installing Bitdefender will do the trick as long as you have the most current version of BD.

[Peter Kinross]

Thanks Rudi.
Combining icons:
The Author, RaMMicHaeL, (his formatting) says 7+ Taskbar Tweaker has been updated for Windows 10, but is broken for Win 10 Creators Update, with no fix available yet.
It is hard to believe that Microsoft have done this. Sometimes I do wonder if anyone at MS actually uses Windows.
Make searchbox smaller:
This worked a treat, I now have just a search box icon - thanks.
Turn off Edge as default:
Already had done that - thanks anyway.
There was another ramification of this: Outlook couldn't follow any hyperlinks, just gave an error. Making Firefox the default again fixed it.
Really Microsoft, you should get your guys actually using Windows.
Windows Defender:
Your refs and anything else I can find requires a registry entry. Don't want to do that just yet.
I am guessing that if it isn't only me with this problem, that there will be a HUGE hue & cry from security software folk. I will wait until a fix is provided either by Bitdefender or Microsoft. Although, if we have to rely on Microsoft, a fix may be years off. In that case, registry, here I come.

[Rudi]

The Author, RaMMicHaeL, (his formatting) says 7+ Taskbar Tweaker has been updated for Windows 10, but is broken for Win 10 Creators Update, with no fix available yet.

According to his blog (see here) there is a beta update (that is publicly available and ready for testing) that sorts out the load error.

[Peter Kinross]

I am embarrassed. I found the solution - exactly where it should be. No idea how I missed it before.
R click Taskbar | Settings | Combine taskbar buttons. I selected "When Taskbar is full".
My laptop just upgraded to Creators and it suffered from none of the stuff ups foisted on my main computer. Everything was the same after the update as before. Got me stumped - but obviously that's not very hard.
Sorry to be a pain, but thanks for your suggestions

[DaveA]

Also the "Use small taskbar buttons" should have taken care of the wide taskbar.

[Jay Freedman]

Peter,
I have an Insider build, 16215 (a few builds beyond the Creators update) in which I use BitDefender. Selecting the Windows Defender page in the Update & Security settings, I get this:

1.png

Clicking the "Turn on" button doesn't turn on Defender, but it brings up the Defender Security Center:

2.png

The "View antivirus providers" link opens the old (Windows 7?) Security & Maintenance control panel, which shows that BitDefender is turned on.

There's an option for Defender to turn off real-time protection but schedule periodic scanning. I haven't used that.

[Peter Kinross]

Win Def is running on my system, and if you turn off real time protection, it will turn back on after a short time.
Win Def firewall is not being used though, BD seems to have overwritten that.

EL_1.jpg

Incredible when you think on it.
Your BD window is very different to mine.

EL_2.jpg

[Jay Freedman]

That difference between the screens is because I'm using BitDefender Free, not the full suite.