Windows 10 Pro - Duplicate Pinned Taskbar Icons

das10 said:

Sorry if you have already tried this, but what if after you close the program, remove the taskbar icon (if any), run the program from its original location, right click the running icon and then choose to pin to taskbar ?

You're 100% correct in saying that I have tried that already. This is what is perplexing me at this point, because I have experienced this before on some other software, and what you've outlined has usually been the fix.

I've even unpinned other software which doesn't have this behaviour and re-pinned them from various locations (mainly the Start Menu and the install locations) and the other software do not create additional pinned icons when they are launched.

It's just Sketchup Pro 2019 that seems to be displaying this behaviour.

I'm short of thinking of doing a complete clean uninstall and reinstall of this one, but the thought of doing all that is a real schlep, given all the extensions I must install.

f14tomcat said:

The second icon after opening the app is the "running" icon, which goes away after you close the app. Since this appears to be happening only with this app, it's unlikely it's a Windows issue, and more likely a quirk or misbehaving setting in the app itself. Is there a support forum for the app? Anybody else reported this?

Yeah, I'm convinced it's a quirk with the app itself, but I thought maybe someone here would have a way to manage such behaviour from within Windows, by doing other steps to try and remedy this.

The software does has a support site, which I haven't tried as yet, but I will go and do a search on there to see if anyone else is experiencing similar issues with the latest version of the software.

f14tomcat said:

Nothing wrong with pointing them here for reference, may save you repeating a lot of things. Good luck.

Good plan. Thanks for trying to assist all the same.

So I managed to figure out what the issue was. The "culprit" was an additional software plug-in that I install to run with SketchUp Pro 2019 which is called VRay Next v4.0, which loads its own menu toolbars within Sketchup Pro after you install it.

I won't even begin to bother to try and find out why this happens on this version, and I will maybe take the matter up with Chaos Group who are the makers of VRay Next.

So for now, I'm happy to mark this as solved, although it is not really resolved, and has only confirmed that it's not a Windows 10 issue, but a plug-in issue.

Thanks for all the assistance.

I know this is an old thread but I found a solution.
I am not a coder so please bear with me.

I have been using 7+ Taskbar Tweaker for over 10 years
but only recently (in the last 2 weeks!) did I discover
yet another capability of this wondrous tool:
7+ Taskbar Tweaker - Windows Taskbar Customization Tool

It has a ton of settings to control the taskbar.
7+ Taskbar Tweaker Main Settings:


7+ Taskbar Tweaker Minor Settings:


In the Bottom-right of its Main Settings is the magic:
Taskbar Inspector:


Taskbar Inspector Context Menu-1:


Taskbar Inspector Context Menu-2:


When you get into the Taskbar Inspector you will find
your tasks. I had to play around here a lot to find the
secret to this sauce.

Your duplicated taskbar icons will be listed under "major"
headings that may not appear, at first, to be related to each
other. But look closely and you should see the connection:
they should be listed one right under the other, and, in the
same sequence in the vertical list presented that they are in
how they appear in your taskbar.

Right-click and start making settings changes to both the
"major" and "minor" entries (NOT to be confused with the
Major and Minor Settings noted above!)

Two settings I found to affect the problem were to set
"Group pinned item" to "Always" as well as to right-click
on the "major" heading, go to "Change Application ID"
and select a different "Application ID" from the listed
items (look for something that resembles what you're
trying to un-duplicate).




By poking around and experimenting with this and that
setting, I was able to de-duplicate every duplicated taskbar
icon that I wanted de-duplicated while leaving others
alone:



So far my settings are holding after reboots (fingers crossed!).

Hope this helps anyone else still struggling with how to
de-duplicate their select taskbar icons.

For those interested in how I got my clock to show as it does
its T-Clock:
GitHub - White-Tiger/T-Clock: Highly configurable Windows taskbar clock
Again, this is another wondrous tool.

Best to all