How to Enable Last Active Click for Windows 10 Taskbar

The way Windows 10 organizes open or minimized apps or programs in the taskbar, it bunches together all open windows of a given app under the same taskbar icon which you then click to bring up thumbnails of all the open windows contained therein. If you want to directly open the last active windows within an open app in the taskbar, you need to hold the Ctrl key while clicking it.

This is reasonably useful, but you may well prefer it if clicking the taskbar icon took you straight to the last window you had open within the app, cutting out the thumbnail faff. Follow along to learn how to enable last active click for Windows 10 Taskbar.

We recommend that you back up your registry because even though this process is safe, if you follow the instructions, a wrong registry edit can cause problems.

1. To begin, open the Registry Editor by pressing the Win key to open the Start menu, then type regedit and hit Enter.

2. Once in the registry editor, enter the following in the address bar at the top:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

3. Right-click an empty space in the pane on the right, select “New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value,” then name it “LastActiveClick.” Right-click your newly-created registry entry and change the “Value data” to “1.”

4. Click OK and your taskbar icons for open or minimized apps will now take you to the last active window with a single click.

If you want to do more Windows 10 maintenance, take a look at how to check CPU temperatures on your PC. It’s also good to know how to find and access the important WindowsApps folder in Windows 10.