How to Disable Live Taskbar Thumbnail Previews in Windows

As first seen in Windows 7, thumbnail previews let you have a peek on the tasks on your taskbar. By hovering the mouse on a task on the taskbar, a thumbnail preview pops up and shows what is running on the selected application. The hover time is predefined, and the default is set to half a second. By hovering on the thumbnail that pops up, you can be able to sneak a peek of what is running on task window without actually going to the task. This has been a handy feature that lets you view tasks easily and still get to your current task easily.

This is not to be confused with Aero Peek that helps your get a peek of your desktop by hovering your mouse on the far right corner of the taskbar. The two are somewhat related and in Windows 7, turning off Aero Peek could turn off the taskbar thumbnail previews too. In Windows 10 however, the live thumbnail preview is activated by the ‘Peek’ feature.

However, this feature seems to be a nuisance to some users who would rather quickly switch to the task. When the mouse hovers over a task accidentally, the peek feature can also be annoying. This article will show you how you can disable live taskbar thumbnail previews with the methods below.

Method 1: Turn off peeking visual effects from the system advanced settings

The peeking feature is a visual effect that can be turned off from the systems settings. To do this:

1. Press Windows Key + X to open the shortcuts menu
2. Go to system
3. On the right hand side choose “system info” from the bottom. Then choose Advanced System Settings
4. In the Advanced Tab, find the Performance section and click on ‘Settings’
5. In the visual effects tab Uncheck “Enable Peek“
6. Click ‘Apply’ then ‘OK’.

Method 2: Increase the user interface hover time in the registry

Hover times are specific to users unless set in the group policy. By setting an extremely high user interface hover time in the current user registry, the peeking feature will never have enough time to ever appear.

1. Open notepad
2. Copy and paste the registry entry below

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

“ExtendedUIHoverTime”=dword:000186a0

1. The dword value 000186a0 is a hexadecimal value that translates to 100,000 seconds in decimal values, so your mouse hover gesture will wait for 100,000 seconds before displaying the taskbar live thumbnail.
2. In your notepad window, go to file > ‘save as’
3. Save the file to your desktop as ExtendedTime.reg
4. Go to the file you created on the desktop and right click it and run as administrator
5. You will get a warning about altering the registry, click ‘yes’ to continue
6. If you are asked if you wish to merge your registry file, click yes to successfully add the registry entry
7. Restart your PC

NOTE: Please take backup of your registry settings before modifying it. see steps (here)