Windows 11 is about to get a second taskbar (well, kind of)

Microsoft is towing with the idea of bringing a secondary menu bar-style experience to the Windows 11 platform, specifically as part of the Command Pallette software that’s bundled within its first-party PowerToys suite.

Called Command Palette Dock, this new user interface would allow for user-customizable shortcuts to be placed in a dedicated on-screen strip, with options for pinning Command Palette extensions, system resource monitor tickers, multimedia playback controls, clipboard history, and other useful quick-access tools. Of course, the strip itself would be toggleable, meaning that it wouldn’t be forced upon the user.

“The dock is designed to be highly configurable. It can be positioned on the top, left, right, or bottom edge of the screen, and extensions can be pinned to three distinct regions of the dock: start, center, and end. Users can also customize the visual appearance, including background, styling, and theme behavior, similar to the main Command Palette shell. An edit mode allows extensions to be dragged, reordered, and moved freely between dock regions,” says Niels Laute, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft.

For the time being, this Command Palette Dock initiative is in a highly experimental phase of development. The proposal itself can be viewed on Microsoft’s PowerToys repository over on GitHub, which showcases a couple of sample screenshots and videos, as well as some written descriptions. Developers are able to test out the feature via compiling code from a dedicated branch within GitHub. The company is actively looking for feedback on the proposal, but it hasn’t committed to officially bringing the feature to light as yet.

Command Pallette Dock is still conceptual

The feature may or may not end up shipping as part of the PowerToys suite

The idea of a dedicated UI surface for tickers, tools, extensions, and other quick-access functions is a compelling one, and I personally hope to see Command Pallette Dock get off the ground. As long as it’s an optional addition to the Windows 11 experience, I can see many power users appreciating the feature and its flexibility. Conceptually, I’m a big fan.

Of particular note is the ability to position the utility’s interface strip to any side of the Windows desktop, making it act as a sort of secondary taskbar of sorts. Windows 11 notoriously lacks the ability to relocate its main taskbar, which has been a major sore point for many Windows 10 holdouts. Taskbar repositioning is an operating system mainstay in the desktop computing world, with macOS and most Linux distributions embracing the feature, and older versions of Windows offering it natively, too.

Taking Microsoft’s recent commitment to improving “the overall experience of Windows,” into consideration, I have high hopes that Command Pallette Dock’s configurability is an omen of what’s to come in the PC space more broadly. The ability to dock the out-of-box taskbar to the side or top of the screen, as well as a simple dropdown menu for resizing it on the fly, would go a long way in making Windows 11 more palatable for those still on the fence about upgrading to the OS.

Plus, I just think it’d be cool to have two separate, repositionable taskbar interfaces pinned to different sides of my PC monitor at any given time — one for managing running apps, and another for glancing at CPU performance, controlling music playback, and more.