How do I move the Tab Bar in IE9 to a more user-friendly location?

Question

Who's descision was it to move the Tabs Bar to the top of everything? Why can't I move it back to a more accessible location like it was in IE8 (directly on top of the web pages)? On a general note; it appears that on every new realease of Microsoft "something" it becomes more stressful and cumbersome to perform "general tasks" (I can perform general task quicker in older versions than I can in new - and it's not because I am used to the "old" but it's because I am human).

Answer 1

I will give you the real answer, which I found by poking around in the interface.  What you want to do is right-click on any clear area of the window header.  Then check the Show tabs on a separate row option from the drop-down menu.  This will move the tabs down below the search bar, and they will be on their own row.

Answer 2

Thanks Jason however, this only drops it down 1 level and "Not" to the bottom row.  What we are requesting is that we have the option to place the tabs on the bottom row directly above the webpage(s).

Many users, including myself, use additional toolbars like the Google tool bar (or others) and perhaps even prefer to display the Menu Bar ... with these options enabled, your tabs will still be above those items like this:

Address bar
Tabs (with option to 'Show tabs on a separate row' enabled) - no option to re-locate this bar/row
Menu Bar
Misc. Toolbar
---------------
Webpage(s) 

The "Forced" layout described above is what we are calling unacceptable.  Users should have control over where they want to place the Tabs. 
One solution would be when the tabs are on a separate row, just give us a grab-tab to reposition as you have on all the other additional bars you can add in.

---

Mark Shipp CEO/Founder Cognecy Solutions, LLC

Answer 3

I would like to add one other point ... 

Your "Tabs" ARE your webpages and therefore should be connected to your webpages!  The logical location for your tab bar is directly above your webpages (just like tabs in a portfolio).  You would not arrange a portfolio with all your divider tabs bunched up at the beginning and then having to thumb through all your content to find the correct page.

With the current IE9 scheme, Microsoft has disconnected your tabs from those pages!  Simply does not make any sense whatsoever.

---

Mark Shipp CEO/Founder Cognecy Solutions, LLC

Answer 4

I did the move on a separate layer, but honestly, it still doesn't look great for me... Luckily for me, this is on the laptop only and my desktop still has the tried and true IE8. I'd prolly just stick with using the desktop for internet access until this IE 9 thing becomes more user friendly as currently it is not.

Answer 5

I would like the tabs at the bottom thanks.

The designer may think his/her reasons for doing it one way are good and they may be. But, surprise, many users have good, but different reasons for alternative methods.

 

I happen to want the tabs at the bottom of the screen. I find it tiring when surfing the internet to have them at the top for everything. It is restful to have the 'work' at the top of the screen, while the parked web pages and other tabs are at the bottom.  It keeps the two seperate and makes my work faster.

 

Firefox allows the user to set this up. Surely Microsoft can manage this?

 

Agree with those wanting to go backwards. I often want to go backwards with these neverending upgrades. Most gains are outweighed by the loss of treasured features which made life easier. It is one constant endless upgrade, relearning how to tweak, to set security correctly, to notice any strange intruder behaviour again. Hackers must love these upgrades which leave the user temporarily at a loss and thus much more vulnerable.  Endless waste of hours. I have better things to do with my time.

 

Back to point. I would like tabs at bottom of screen thanks. I have a good reason for this. I am a user. What more needs to be said?

 

 

Answer 6

If you right click on the tab, you wll get a menu that asks if you want tabs on a separate line.  Choose that and you will be fine.  Agree that I like IE8 formatting better.  Also I miss the separate search window where I could choose which search engine I wanted.  I am thinking of reverting back to IE8.

Answer 7

Putting tabs on a separate line is easy.  The problem is that it's a line *above* my menu bar and Google toolbar.  I (and others in this thread) want it immediately above the actual web pages, regardless of what other bars may be in use.  It is infuriating not to be able to do that!

Answer 8

Jason, You are a giant A-hole.  Did you even read the question?

Answer 9

I will give you the real answer, which I found by poking around in the interface.  What you want to do is right-click on any clear area of the window header.  Then check the Show tabs on a separate row option from the drop-down menu.  This will move the tabs down below the search bar, and they will be on their own row.

"Jason M Archer is NOT helpful.  He is a self-serving jackass who likes to hear himself talk, and overall is counterproductive and a pain in your head."

 

Answer 10

Mark,

 

I have this same problem.  Thank you for your attempt to try to find an answer.

 

David

Answer 11

No, you are wrong.  Did you even try this?  Did you even read the previous messages?

 

The point is, Windows IE won't let you put the Tabs Bar on the bottom.

Answer 12

thank you econklin4 for articulating the question.

 

Answer 13

Janice, this is NOT helpful.   You did not read the question, your advice is incorrect, and I have no other option than to conclude that you are a terrible narrow minded selfish person who really should be in theraphy and not screwing up other peoples lives with you incorrect "advice"

Answer 14

I just "up" or "down" graded to IE9 and the first thing which struck me as very odd and user unfriendly was the location of the tabs. 

Realising that one can't move them to where they belong, that is. directly above the web page and not 2 miles or 2 lines away.

 Since this is not possible I supsect my use of IE9 will remain limted to the occasional need of MS browser.  I'll stick with FireFox for the moment 

Answer 15

Quoting from dave h tvz ->

No, you are wrong.  Did you even try this?  Did you even read the previous messages?

The point is, Windows IE won't let you put the Tabs Bar on the bottom.

Who are you talking to ??

Here is a helpful tip, Dave,

When posting a reply to a specific post that is not the "Original-Post", it would be helpful to others reading the thread, and helpful to the person you are directing your post to, for you to refer to the person you are talking to by name, and to include a quote of at least a little bit of their post.

To you, it may be obvious who you are responding to, but it may not be obvious to anyone else. Threads can change ... posts can be edited. The post you are replying to may have even been deleted and in that case, your reply is meaningless and confusing to others. Your post should *mostly* stand on it's own and should contain enough information for readers to get your point without having to search the whole thread and guess at who or what you are commenting on.

 

Answer 16

dave h tvz -> It is odd (or perhaps ironic) that while you complain so much about others non-helpful posts, I find that *most* of your replies are absolutely useless!!

Quoting from dave h tvz ->

..., You are a giant #-hole. Did you even read the question?

"... is NOT helpful.  He is a self-serving jackass who likes to hear himself talk, and overall is counterproductive and a pain in your head."

It is not helpful to say: "so-and-so you are not helpful and you are a xxxx-ass".

It would be much more helpful to skip the insults and add something constructive to your criticism.

How about something like: "so-and-so: your answer is not helpful. The original-poster already knows how to do that. Please re-read the original post and other replies. Feel free to post again if you can provide some additional information.

Even this answer is a little harsher than I would probably post, but perhaps it suits your taste.

And BTW, Dave,  ... perhaps more irony here ... boy-o-boy it seems YOU really must like to hear YOUR self talk!

More quoting from dave h tvz ->

... , this is NOT helpful. You did not read the question, your advice is incorrect, and I have no other option than to conclude that you are a terrible narrow minded selfish person who really should be in theraphy and not screwing up other peoples lives with you incorrect "advice"

Again Dave, YOUR post is not helpful. Just more of the same...

blah blah blah you are incorrect blah blah you are a terrible narrow minded selfish person blah blah blah you really should be in [sp theraphy] therapy blah blah you screw up other peoples lives blah blah.

David, David, DAVID! Get a GRIP! ... What is the point to all this ?

Try to be the first to step up and take your own "advice".

Answer 17

mikehein,

<Who's descision was it to move the Tabs Bar to the top of everything?>

It was the decision of the same people who "think" that a horizontal listing in the control panel and similar "design" foolery is an improvement. Tons of people want the tabs back at the bottom where they logically belong but the "design" people at msn "think" they know better. It is because a) they are too arrogant to even consider that customers might have the right to prefer certain settings - b) they don't know the difference between design and style; they are stylists, not designers, and they are poor stylists.

Tabs belong to the bottom because they are temporary and need to be clickable intuitively, and not be part of dozens of other buttons and links where the eye must locate them actively. Design-wise, putting the tabs at the top is a stupidity, refusing to listen to users is a stupidity, refusing to offer an option whereby users could place the tabs where they want is a stupidity.

The consequence of stupidity is that despite dominating the market, IExplorer keeps losing users.

(The tannoy comes on, boarding should start any sec now, time to switch off the tablet...)

Answer 18

Just want to add my voice, it is SO bloody annoying not being able to move the tabs back down below all the menu bars.

I imagine this layout was copied from Firefox, but please, if you are going to copy like children, copy everything ... Firefox DOES have a way for users to customize and move the tabs down.

Tabs are what we need to click on most often so should be closest to the main area of web page no matter how many other toolbars we choose to have.

I'm reverting to Firefox until this is fixed.

As somebody else said, IE used to have the lion's share of the browser market and the reason for losing it is simply that you keep making changes that your users do not want, so we go elsewhere.

BTW I also found that ask.com had hijacked my browser without my permission during one of IE's recent updates. If microsoft organised that, it's huge IE9 mistake #2 ... anybody would think that you are going out and hiring people who specialize in finding new ways to infuriate your users ...

Answer 19

I too find this new interface to be less then par. When I have an extra hour or so I will reverse engineer it a little with Olly Debug and modify/add a few lines to fix mine and add the option to drag the bars where I want them. It's not rocket science folks. If you spent half the time researching how to fix minor issues as complaining and arguing about it you would have been able to solve the problem. Though reverse engineering IE is most likely against the EULA I'm sure nobody would have a stroke if you rearranged your toolbars and tabs with a few lines of code on your own browser. I wouldn't recommend marketing your mod or even spread it around too much. Once you start looking up Microsofts skirt and trying to steal some of their Monopoly money is when they start mailing cease and desist letters. I have given you enough information in this post to fix it yourself if you can use google and your brain. You will find reverse engineering is a great hobby and learning experience. It's almost sad to see so many posts by computer users and not one even remotely understands how they work and how simple it actually is. If there's no shiney magic tab or right click option for them to click on it's impossible mentality is frightening to me. If you give someone a fish they eat your fish. If you teach them how to fish that's even worse because they will be eating your fish every day so just let them eat the bioengineered sterility corn products. Hey, I think I just coined Microsofts new Mantra....

Answer 20

I too want my tabs on the bottom! When creating something for your users, you should always keep in mind - USER FRIENDLY...thus, what the user wants. I find it quite disturbing and have been dealing with this for weeks - trying time after time to try to fix it. At first, I thought my son had changed something...but I guess not! After dealing with this for weeks, I have finally and once again tried to get this changed...therefore, I WANT IT CHANGED. This isn't just a phase or premature decision...it has been WEEKS! So, I know what I want...

Answer 21

I will give you the real answer, which I found by poking around in the interface.  What you want to do is right-click on any clear area of the window header.  Then check the Show tabs on a separate row option from the drop-down menu.  This will move the tabs down below the search bar, and they will be on their own row.

Thank you so much! I really dont mind IE9, But that was a killer, I'm a big tab kind of guy, 10-15 at a time

Answer 22

In Pale Moon you can do that, it's a fast web browser, optimized for Windows, based on Firefox and has an x64 version too, what else do you want? :)

Diego A.

Answer 23

This is a matter of MS IE9 copying FireFox.  Heaven forbid they should think for themselves!

I just switched to IE9 today after Mozilla got so SLOW I was waiting five seconds for three words to come up in the gmail!

Lesser of evils; however I'll take speed everytime.  The tabs are completly counter intuitive to me.  Oh well.

Answer 24

The same annoyance led me to be here. I think I will have to get back to IE8 due to this (really big) shortcoming.

:( Vote and go (back to IE8) 

Answer 25

Easy answer & fix is to roll back to IE8. Go to control panel/programs and features/view installed updates and click uninstall IE 9.

Answer 26

@EXE_cutioner...

Sorry, but I think you will find that most of us are drivers, not auto-mechanics. The vast majority of IE users do not know how to write code, let alone reverse engineer it and re-write it.

All we are asking, as users of IE9, is for MS to own up to the fact that they messed this one up big time, and should issue a patch or fix that would allow us to customize the interface the way we like.

Answer 27

When everyone is saying "tabs at the bottom" for the IE9 windows, are you guys saying individual boxes on the taskbar for each page?  The page that is currently running being the one that is written in the tab at the bottom?  Are you guys using Windows 7?  You can do this, making it seem just about like old XP and IE7 if you want.

Right Click on the task bar

Click Properties

Select: Taskbar buttons: Never Combine    from the dropdown

This will allow all windows of any kind to display seperately on the taskbar, just like the old days.

Personally I prefer the Win7 and IE9 standard, but if you want it, you can do it.

Answer 28

It was a question on how to move the tab bar to the bottom. How for your opinion on what people want. I don't want to hear your opinion, I want to know the procedure to do it-There is one but I did not bookmark it. So I am looking for the answer not your I am above your attitude.

Answer 29

There was a question. Not a request for your opinion on where you like the tab Bar. There is a way but I did not bookmark it so I am following the answers, Not you're superior opinion.

Answer 30

Sane as above.

Answer 31

Would you people stop arguing opinion and get to the question. You are making this hard to get an answer not opinions. There is an answer. I didn't bookmark it but there is one.

Answer 32

Read above.

Answer 33

Look above