How to move the start button to the left side of the taskbar using Group Policy

Introduction

Learn how to move the taskbar alignment from the middle to the left side manually as well as using Group Policy. In this example, I show you how to manually move and align the taskbar items from the center to the left of the taskbar, as well as how you can deploy a registry key using group policy and item-level targeting.

How to move the start button to the left side of the taskbar using Group Policy video

How to move the start button to the left side of the taskbar using Group Policy

1. Open Group Policy Management

2. Right-click Group Policy Objects and select New

3. Enter a name for your GPO. (Example: win-11-start-button)

4. Navigate to User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Registry

5. Right-click and select New Registry Item

6. Under General settings, configure the following settings:

   • Action: Update
   • Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER
   • Key Path: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
   • Value name: TaskbarAl
   • Value type: REG_DWORD
   • Value data: 0

7. Under Common settings, configure the following settings:

8. Tick Item-level targeting

9. Select Targeting…

10. Press New Item

11. Select WMI Query

    • Query:

    select * from Win32_OperatingSystem where Version like "10.0.2%" and ProductType="1"
    

    • Namespace: Root\cimv2
    • Property: Leave this blank

12. Press OK

13. Press Apply to the TaskbarAl Properties window.

14. Then press OK to close the window.

15. Close the Group Policy Management Editor window.

16. Drag the Group Policy Object and drop it over the organisational unit(s) that have the users you want to apply this policy to.

17. Wait for the policy to update on the users workstations and the taskbar should now move to the left side. (You can speed this process up by running gpupdate /force on the clients to pull down the new policy immediately)

The taskbar should now be aligned to the left.