How to Customize the Taskbar’s Orientation in Windows 11? [Guide]

One of the most significant changes that came along with the advent of Windows 11 was its centrally placed start button inside a thicker Taskbar. Undoubtedly, it was an essential step toward modernizing the UI, but doing so had its downsides.

For starters, for the first time in the history of Windows, the Taskbar was locked to stay at the bottom of the screen, which was hated by many power users such as video editors who moved their Taskbar to the right or left side of the screen to increase their vertical screen real estate.

That said, here’s a step-by-step guide that explains how you can move Windows 11’s Taskbar to any other location instead of the bottom with the help of this simple Registry trick as detailed below:

Step 1: Navigate to Start, type Registry Editor and open the first search result that appears on the screen.

Step 2: Inside the Registry Editor, navigate to the following path:

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects3

Step 3: Now, Double-click on the Settings binary key found under the StuckReacts3 Key. Now an Edit Binary Value window appears.

Step 4: Inside the Edit Binary Value window, locate the 03 value that can be found in the sixth column of the second row.

Step 5: Once located click on 03 and edit it to be:

• 00: if you want the Taskbar on the left side of the screen.
• 01: if you want the Taskbar on the top of the screen.
• 02: if you want the Taskbar on the right side of the screen.
• 03: if you want the Taskbar on the bottom of the screen.

Step 6: Now go ahead and restart your PC or you can also go to the Task Manager and restart the File Explorer. 

Once you complete all the steps, the Windows 11 Taskbar will move to the top or either side of your display as specified in the binary key.

In case you don’t like the way it looks, you can return the Taskbar to the bottom of your screen by following the steps listed above and changing the string value to 03.