In certain laptops/desktops, you will be able to see a few apps keep pining themselves to the taskbar after each reboot.
For me, this happens in my MSI-manufactured Windows 11 laptop.
Do the following to fix this annoyance.
- Once you have logged into your Windows 11 operating system
- Press “Win + R” keys
- Type in “%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Shell”
- This will open up the folder “Shell”
- Within the folder, you will find a file named “LayoutModification.xml”
- Create a copy of that file and rename it to “LayoutModification-Original.xml.bak”
- Now open that file with the “Notepad” app.
- Search for the word “CustomTaskbar” and you should be able to see the following lines.
<CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection>
<defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
<taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
<taskbar:UWA AppUserModelID="9426MICRO-STARINTERNATION.DragonCenter_kzh8wxbdkxb8p!App" />
<taskbar:UWA AppUserModelID="9426MICRO-STARINTERNATION.CreatorCenter_kzh8wxbdkxb8p!App" />
<taskbar:UWA AppUserModelID="9426MICRO-STARINTERNATION.BusinessCenter_kzh8wxbdkxb8p!App" />
<taskbar:UWA AppUserModelID="9426MICRO-STARINTERNATION.MSICenter_kzh8wxbdkxb8p!App" />
<taskbar:UWA AppUserModelID="Microsoft.GamingApp_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.Xbox.App" />
</taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
</defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
</CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection>
- In the above case, there are 5 line items (4,5,6,7 & 8) which start the relevant apps.
- Remove the necessary lines and save the file.
<CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection>
<defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
<taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
</taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
</defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
</CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection>Reboot the system and those apps shouldn’t pin themselves in the next restart.
