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Question
Thursday, February 7, 2013 12:04 AM | 2 votes
If you like the comfort of being able to close/x out (in MS Word or Excel) one single document and still have the session open you are out of luck! Now you have to X out of the session. In office 2010 you could avoid that by going to File>>Option>>advanced>>Display and uncheck "Show all windows in the taskbar" to get that taken care of - That option is now gone. Now if you open 10 Word or Excel documents you will end up with 10 sessions of Word or Excel (That's quite taxing on CPU). This is very very very dummm!
If anyone has a work around I'd greatly appreciate a fix
All replies (23)
Friday, February 8, 2013 2:57 AM âś…Answered | 2 votes
Hi,
Based on my research, the MDI Mode (Show all windows in the Taskbar) feature has been fully removed. Referring to the following link:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178954.aspx
Then here's a workaround, set "Always combine, hide labels" in the Taskbar setting, then the documents will show in one icon in the taskbar, then right click the icon, there will show an option "Close all windows". Following the following steps:
- Right click on the task bar
- Select "Properties"
- Select "Taskbar Tab"
- Taskbar Buttons drop down, select "Always combine, hide labels"
- Click "Apply" button
- Click "Ok" button
Jaynet Zhang
TechNet Community Support
Monday, December 23, 2013 10:12 PM | 2 votes
This solution is no good in my opinion as is applies to all taskbar windows. Plus I think the combine option is the default in windows, so if someone is having this problem then it is someone who has turned this setting off.
If I can't find a different solution I'm going to be pretty unhappy with this change
If there was a problem - Yo, I'll solve it
Wednesday, April 23, 2014 1:45 PM | 3 votes
I'm also not happy with this change, the old way worked better for how I work, and I'd at least like the option to go back, like we had in Office 2007 (and I believe 2010 as well). It's bad enough that Excel insists on showing a taskbar item for each open workbook, but worse, it also shows another taskbar item for the base application?! And closing Excel requires that I close the docs, then close the base app. What a pain. This is a step backwards in UI efficiency.
However.. contrary to Sam's comment that opening 10 Excel workbooks opens 10 different instances of Excel, that is incorrect. If you inspect the Processes tab in Task Manager, you will see that there is just one instance of Excel running no matter how many workbooks you have open.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014 12:31 PM
I agree with you about them mishandling the taskbar settings.
However, you can close EVERYTHING all at once by holding the shift key while clicking the X in the top right corner of the title bar.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014 12:39 PM
You can add the Close command to your Quick Access Toolbar. That will allow you to close a single document/spreadsheet that's open in either Word or Excel WITHOUT closing the program itself.
Alternatively, you can close just the active current document with Ctrl-F4 and, even if it's the only file you have opened, the underlying program remains open.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014 7:05 AM | 1 vote
I totally agree with this point. This was the first setting I used to configure on any new machine I work from last 12 years and having seperate window in taskbar for each file is not user friendly at all.
Thursday, January 8, 2015 7:41 AM
I am not sure what all you guys are griping about. I have just installed Office 2013. Seeing no option to show all windows I Googled and came to this thread. In the meantime I opened five new documents. They all show on the task bar. They are just stacked and not individual tabs. This what happened on 2010 when there was not enough room on the task bar. Firstly the tabs got smaller and smaller then they stacked. With a laptop they almost always stacked due to lack of space (I have a lot of quick launch icons on the task bar). Move curser over the stack and they all appear as separate mini images. Move over a particular image and an X appears top right - just as it did on 2010. Click it and that document - and only that document - closes (or right click on it and select close - also like 2010). Just as an experiment I deleted a bunch of quick launch icons and in the bar properties selected combine only when no room and guess what - they are all individual. So seriously guys take a couple of chill pills and relax; it's not the world ending disaster you portray.
Thursday, January 8, 2015 2:50 PM | 1 vote
Hey khun_tilt, I'm glad that you cleared that up for me. Because you understand how everyone works with their PCs, you just know that this change isn't impactful, right?
This new concept that the taskbar shows open documents, rather than running applications is significant. In Office 2010, you could revert back to 'normal', but the lack of this option in 2013, IMO, is a material problem. I'm a software developer, and it's not uncommon for me to have 8-10+ applications running at one time. Paging through those with alt-tab was bad enough, but now the number of elements that I have to page through (apps plus open docs in Word and Excel) could be 30+. That is a problem.
If other software vendors (Informatica, Oracle, Hyperion, Adobe, Autodesk) adopt this UI concept, I'm really screwed. But for now, it's inconsistent, and I don't like that either.
I don't think anyone said this is a "world ending disaster", but it does have a real impact on my productivity, and it's bad software design.
Friday, May 29, 2015 6:20 PM
As a developer, I'm very unhappy with this change as well. The only workaround we've found for a problem we have with Word (I wouldn't presume to call it a "bug" (yet) since it may be unique to our automation and scripting methods) is to send an instruction to Word to UNCHECK "Show all windows in the taskbar"; the problem is that paragraph numbering gets garbled with multiple "instances" open. After assembly we return this setting to the user's initial choice.
The decision by MS to remove the feature is a bit odd - as I recall they removed it in Word 2000, but returned it in the next version (was that Word 2002?).
Saturday, February 13, 2016 2:21 PM | 1 vote
That is not a viable answer and should not have been checked as accepted. The only way to get the MDI function back is to use a program called Office Tab, it would put each document like tab style separating it and you wouldn't have all of the documents on the taskbar. you would have to pay for it but even after trying it out for a month you would love it.
Just look up "office tab" on google and you'll see the link to the site. I think that would be a better alternative than what Jaynet's recommending you do, as once you install it set it up right it would be like welcoming an old friend you haven't heard from since 2nd grade.
Monday, August 15, 2016 12:34 PM
Hello khun_tilt I did my best to follow your instructions but I don't see the picture of what you explained here in your post.
Monday, October 10, 2016 10:30 PM
I have the same frustrating situation. I love how to combine different sessions in one window without unnecessary data on the screen. how I hate this was removed!!! >(
Monday, October 10, 2016 10:38 PM
This is a pain, not only for closing files.. but for working with vlookups and other functions. Before 2013, it was easier to get 2 different sheets but one single toolbar for both. now there's one for each sheet, which it doesn't make sense for me.
It's totally dumb to get back on this functionality!
Sunday, December 25, 2016 11:43 PM | 1 vote
Oh that's just wonderful!
Just got a new PC with Office 2013 and the first thing I wanted to do was make Word open my documents in the same window, as I have done for many years.
For my work it is much more convenient to have various documents open at the same time on the screen (the view option is a non-starter, they are still different task bars, etc.) and to minimize them (WITHIN the window) meaning I can also move them around and organize within the window. This really screws things up... and what is the great reason for removing this useful toggle?
If anybody finds a way of opening documents in one window (not putting multiple windows alongside one another) I would be very happy to hear about it... otherwise I'll be uninstalling 2013 and going back to 2010, which kind of defeats the object of uprading.
:-(
Wednesday, March 1, 2017 10:42 AM | 1 vote
I am with oolitka. For years, I have used a large desktop PC with Win7 and MSOP2010 (all good). I have now added new laptop with Win10 (but Office not installed). I have taken up the offer of a licence to use MSOP2013 and installed it onto new laptop. I am in disbelief that the facility to open up documents WITHIN Word has been removed. I have spent hours exploring settings in the hope of a workaround, but there is none. "Combining on the taskbar" makes no difference and "hiding the ribbon" makes no difference. WORD (and all its ribbons/tools/gubbins etc) opens up completely separately all over the screen with every new document. I use the analogy of having 4 sewing jobs to do and having four sewing machines on your table, instead of four jobs+one sewing machine. This nonsense has distressed me so much that I have uninstalled MSOP2013 from the laptop and taken up the offer of a licence to install MSOP2010 on my laptop (thus being able to be as productive on the laptop as I am on the desktopPC). Even more depressing is that someone has told me that MSOP2016 has the same ridiculous omission as 2013. This is just sad - the more so for being inexplicable.
Monday, April 24, 2017 6:45 PM
I found this thread when I was trying to resolve a related issue...
In MS Office - specifically - MS Excel - there was an option "Show all windows in the Taskbar".
If you created a macro in excel, and stored in your PERSONAL.XLSB workbook, when you closed a workbook, if the option was unchecked it left an empty excel window open (basically because the personal.xlsb sheet was hidden), if unchecked - it would close all windows.
In Windows 10, there is no "Properties" Option. Even selecting "Settings" / "Taskbar" / "Combine taskbar buttons" dropdown & selecting "Always, hide labels" does not resolve the previously described problem, the Window is still left open, and you have to close that window also.
Any suggestions?
Thursday, May 18, 2017 3:07 PM
I upgraded from Office 2010 to 2016, and was also very frustrated with this feature; so my solution was to add an icon to the Quick Access Toolbar for both Word and Excel to "Exit Word" and "Exit Excel". I was able to find this command when I opened the Customize the Quick Access Toolbar, and selected the All Commands under the Choose Commands from, column. Since the commands are listed alphabetically, it was easy to find the Exit command, and the screen tip verified that this was the one I wanted to add. On the toolbar it shows Exit, and the screen tip will display Exit {app name}.
With this option available, I can now either close individual files, or the entire application, which also closes all open files, with a single click. Since I also like to have more than one way to do the same thing, I also created a new Ribbon Group, and added this same command to my new group, so I have it available on the ribbon as well.
Interested in gaining knowledge
Friday, June 16, 2017 12:39 AM | 2 votes
Can someone from Microsoft provide comment on the inability to display all open windows in the taskbar. Users should be given the option to chose to stack windows or have them separate. As someone who works with multiple excel workbooks at the same time, I'm finding that having 5 excels workbooks stacked is inefficient. App development focuses on reducing clicks not increasing them, which seems to happen with this new approach. Can MS provide a user configurable option to allow users to decide how they want to use Windows.
Thursday, January 4, 2018 2:32 AM | 1 vote
For me, the important thing was being able to flip between word documents using ctrl-F6 and flip between different applications using alt-tab. Now I have to use alt-tab for both and my alt-tab choices are cluttered up with half a dozen instances of Word and when I'm just trying to switch between Word documents I have to skip past all the other applications that are open on my computer. So, i liked treating all the open documents as windows withing Word, not as separate windows as if they were different applications and find treating them as separate to be inferior.
More fundamentally, in Word 2010 people who wanted all their documents to show up in the task bar or when cycling among applications with alt-tab had that choice! And sane people like me who didn't want to treat them separately had that choice too! Now, we all get the same behavior and just have to suck it up if we don't like it.
How is that a product improvement?
Thursday, January 4, 2018 2:37 AM | 1 vote
How does it make sense for MS moderators to mark their comments as "answers" when they don't answer the actual question being asked. The number of icons in the task bar is not the problem. The treatment of each document as if it were it's own application (and the effect that has on flipping between documents and between applications) is the problem and this "answer" is absolutely no help at all.
Sunday, September 2, 2018 3:39 PM
Wayne,
Thank you . . . .
For my money, whilst undoubtedly "logically" correct, it is quite counter-intuitive
. . . . I would have thought that it would only close that "instance"/"window" of Word.
I will adopt it as a cure for an easy "finished with all Word files" option
Thank you again.
Sid
Sunday, September 2, 2018 3:46 PM
Ah! I have just realised that this is a forum for IT Pros so I am a bit of an interloper.
There are a number of aspects to this issue on this thread but for me the key item is:
I would like to see all the open documents as windows within Word / Excel etc, not as separate windows as if they were different applications. In this respect I am echoing/supporting 123dcp.
(What happens on the task bar does not bother me too much but it clearly does bother others)
I have just moved to Office 365 / 2016 and greatly miss this feature.
Sid
Thursday, November 15, 2018 8:56 PM
I know you asked this over a year ago, but I landed on this thread by searching for an answer to this same issue. I discovered that if you go to the taskbar settings (right click on the taskbar), under "combine taskbar buttons" choose "never" or "when taskbar is full" and that will separate them. Hope this helps you or anyone else with this problem!