I'm still occasionally trying the tasklist grouping option, but I keep getting unusual results that depend on the application type - 64-bit or 32-bit.

For example, in one single group, I have the following tasks:

All of these tasks are 64-bit native tasks, and they're grouped in the second button group in the next image.

Whereas, the rest of the taskbar groups seem to be reasonably consistent (and my apologies for the wide image):


Again, I think this comes back to the 64-bit vs 32-bit app issues, so if there is anything else I can provide to help figure out how we can fix or work around this issue, I'd be very much appreciative.

Thanks.

NextSTART groups 'similar applications' by their executable name, e.g.; all IE windows are provided by IEXPLORE.EXE, therefore all IE windows end up being grouped together.

What this seems to indicate is that the 64 bit system is 'lying' to the 32 bit NextSTART application by giving it the wrong executable name (I'm sure there is some reason for this, of course).

Try the following and report back the results: click the icon (NOT elsewhere on the task button, the actual icon!) of a 64 bit task in the NextSTART tasklist and drag it into a shelf or dock. Now right click on it and select Properties. What shows up in the filename field?

That's interesting - I've seen this behaviour before, but I thought it was me doing something stupid....

When I dragged the Thunderbird x64 task "icon" to a dock, the dock made room for it, but there was no displayed item - no icon, but the label string is displayed.

In the properties for that new dock item:
Item Type : Program
Label : Inbox - Mail/News
Filename : <blank>
Arguments : <blank>
Start In : \
Run: Normal WIndow
Icon Path : <blank>

When I did the same thing for any 64-bit application, I get the same results, except the Label field is correctly set to each window's title.

When I drag the same application links from the NextStep menu to a dock, the filename field isn't blank, but it's still wrong - it's reported as "\Program Files (x86)\..." instead of "Program Files" (but the "Start In" and "Icon Path" are usually correct!).

So it looks like there may be more than one interrogation function reporting the wrong base location or path - depending on whether I drag from the taskbar or a menu.

If I update the dock icon's fields manually, then I can drag and drop that icon on another dock or back into a NS menu with no problems, and I can launch it fine. It's just that first step from tasklist->whatever, or ns menu->whatever that's getting the wrong info from WIndows.