Option to remove speed dial entries from taskbar context menu

Malebolge

After using Opera for almost 20 years I got sick of it cramming tons of useless features into it (and most of the time not even giving you any options to turn things off) so I decided to try Vivaldi. So far it's been a pleasant experience but I noticed that one of the features that caused me to stop using Opera unfortunately also exists in Vivaldi.

I'm talking about speed dial entries being shown above all other options in the Windows taskbar context menu:

When it comes to Opera it's a relatively recent addition, a month or so I think. I don't know when it was added to Vivaldi but I would like to find a way to remove this section from the context menu. The only reason I use that menu is to open a new private window, nothing else. What I do is - right click on the icon and click on the third option from the top without much reading. Now I need to visually scan through a whole bunch of options I'm not even interested in just so that I can find (in my case) the 12th item, which is crazy.

I haven't been able to find any options to turn it off in Vivaldi. Is it possible? Are there any hidden flags I can toggle or config files I can edit? If not, are there any plans on giving users such option? I know it sounds petty but if Vivaldi won't let me remove stuff I don't want to see then I might as well just start using Chrome or Edge. They're not bad browsers after all. The only reason why I'm still sticking with Opera and/or Vivaldi are mouse gestures, which I'm sure I could make work in those browsers too somehow.

Thanks in advance!

Pesala

@Malebolge I have never seen the Speed Dials on the taskbar context menu and have no idea how you might have enabled them.

I found nothing in Windows Taskbar settings, which is where I would expect to find them; not in Vivaldi settings.

Malebolge

@Pesala Really? That is so bizarre! I have definitely not enabled anything. In fact, I did a fresh Windows 10 installation a couple weeks ago. I wonder if it's some setting in Windows 10 itself. Will post an update if I find anything.

Pesala

@Malebolge I also use Windows 10 (see my forum signature). I also tested in the latest Vivaldi Stable version.

To include your OS and Vivaldi version in your forum signature.

Edit your forum profile.

Ayespy

@Malebolge Does the same thing on Win11 here (though I never use the Win taskbar menu and so didn't notice. This is a Windows thing. Vivaldi cannot cause it or prevent it. Would be interesting to know how to turn it off in Windows.

Hadden89

@Malebolge
Probably something done by windows update. I see them on Win11 too.
Yesterday the SD weren't present on my taskbar and didn't changed any V-setting ^^,

But seems you can remove them

Right click > Remove from this list

Malebolge

After a quick investigation I learned that there is a thing called Jump Lists in Windows 7 and 10 (and most probably 11).

Jump Lists are a new feature, starting with Windows 7. They are similar to shortcuts in that they take the user directly to the files or directories that are used on a regular basis. They are different from the normal shortcuts in that they are more extensible in what information they display. For example, Internet Explorer will use Jump Lists to display websites frequently visited, whilst Microsoft Office products like Excel, PowerPoint and Word, will show most recently opened documents.

In simple terms it's the recent file lists that we all must have seen at one point or another in taskbar context menus of applications like Word, Excel, Paint, etc. It seems that browsers like Opera and Vivaldi expose visited speed dial entries as recent files, or rather Jump List entries. That causes Windows to add them to right-click options of said applications.

The easiest way to completely disable this feature is as follows:

Press Win+I to open the Settings application
Navigate to Personalization:
Choose Start on the left side of the window:

At this point you should see the following option at the bottom of the list:

Before you turn it off you should know that doing so will irreversibly wipe recent file lists in ALL your applications. I turned the option off to see if it worked and it removed recent files from context menus of Word, Paint.net, Vivaldi, Opera and other apps. Turning it back on didn't restore them so it looks like as soon as you turn it off it simply deletes those lists.

If that's what you want, however, turning this option off "fixes" the original issue I posted and removes all the speed dial entries from the context menu:

For those more technically inclined - I found an application called "JumpList Explorer" by Eric Zimmerman: https://ericzimmerman.github.io/

Windows stores Jump List configuration files in the following two locations:

%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations\[AppID].automaticDestinations-ms
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations\[AppID].customDestinations-ms

After inspecting all Jump List files using this application I found that AppID for Vivaldi is 158aa8c19981b864, which means that it's the 158aa8c19981b864.customDestinations-ms file in the second location (the CustomDestinations one) that contains Vivaldi lists. I tried closing Vivaldi, deleting the file and relaunching it (with the Windows setting enabled) and the file got recreated (as I expected).

I haven't read enough about Jump Lists to know how they get created but I'm assuming the application needs to inform Windows that it supports this feature and expose the actual values. I'm sure Windows isn't smart enough to just auto-magically "know" that you clicked on a speed dial entry in Vivaldi. Besides, if you toggle the Windows option back on all speed dial entries appear in the context menu after a few seconds so to me that shows that it's definitely Vivaldi doing it.

So, all in all, there's a way to turn this feature off in Windows completely (which is not something everyone might want) but there isn't a way to just do it in Vivaldi alone. I, personally, think there should be a way and therefore think this is a valid feature request.