Speed Up Aero Peek (thumbnail preview)
I am using Aero Peek very often to navigate through open applications/explorer items in the taskbar. If you use it too, you have probably already noticed that thumbs open rather slow when you hover over the taskbar application.
Luckily there’s a way to speed this up so the thumbnail opens instantly as soon as you hover over any open application in the taskbar.
Here’s how to do it:
Hit Win ORB | Type REGEDIT | Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
In the right pane right click on on the white area and create a New DWORD (32-bit) Value (if you’re using Windows 64-bit, if not mind the (32-bit).
Type ExtendedUIHoverTime and click OK | Double click on the ExtendedUIHoverTime key and in the Value data box type 1 | click OK
Close the registry editor and restart your machine for changes to take effect.
Notice that thumbnails opens instantly as you hover over the application shortcut in the taskbar.
If you would like to revert changes we made now, just change the Value of the ExtendedUIHoverTime key in the registry to 0. OR just delete the ExtendedUIHoverTime key.
On the other hand, if you would like to slow it up, you can use a custom value like 2000 or 3000 in the Value box.
Comments are welcome!
Right click on the taskbar and select properties. Clear the box for ‘Use Aero Peek to preview the desktop’.
Now in the start menu type ‘advance system settings’ and click enter.
Under performance click Settings. Clear the box ‘Enable Aero Peek’.
This should do the trick.
Oh, I HATE this Windows feature!!!!!!!!!
I don’t like the thumbnails, but the worst happens, if you hover the little pictures with your mouse cursor: all other picters become transparent – this makes the work uneasy, confusing and does not help at all!
I did try to increase the delay, which does help in this point – but has a big disadvantage: if I drag something on a taskbar button, the relevant window should pop to the foreground. But the delay setting has also an effect on this behavoir. 🙁
=> If you also have an idea, how to get rid of this (in my opinion) shitty feature, please post an article about this – and you will be my hero! 🙂
Right click on the taskbar and select properties. Clear the box for ‘Use Aero Peek to preview the desktop’.
Now in the start menu type ‘advance system settings’ and click enter.
Under performance click Settings. Clear the box ‘Enable Aero Peek’.
This should do the trick.
Hello Nik, thank you for this tip.
I did already try to disable ‘Use Aero Peek to preview the desktop’ – but this did only disalble Aero Peek for the button next to the systray. (And with this feature I actually don’t have any problems. 🙂
The option ‘Enable Aero Peek’ under performance settings did do the job!
Ok, now I don’t have the Aero Peek for the low right corner any more – but it is better this way. Thanks a lot.
I still like to disable the taskbar thumbnails though. – Do you have an advice here too? 🙂
As far as I know there is no turn off switch for taskbar thumbnail previews, but you can solve it this way.
Use procedure above and in the value box instead of 1 type 20000.
This will extend the thumbnail hover delay to 20 seconds.
I will soon post another procedure on how to achieve this, but as I said there is no on/off switch.
Thank you for the new article Nik,
but I did try this before and had a big problem with it. – I did mention this in my first post:
If you drag a file onto a taskbar button, to bring the corresponding window back to the foreground, you have to wait exactly the same delay, which is even more frustrating, than the thumbnail previews are distractive!
That is, why I switched back to the standard delay. Are you facing the same issue like me?
Yes, I see, you’re right, I understand what you’ve ment.
Hmm, you can try to disable desktop composition in the advanced system settings | performance settings, but in this way you will loose whole aero feature 🙁