Why can I no longer move tabs in Visual Studio 2022?

Robert DeMaree 111

I can't understand why SOMETIMES--I can move tabs; other times--I can NOT.

Was this "upgrade" intentional? Was the ability to move tabs, offensive to some users?

Anna Xiu-MSFT 25,801 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-06-13T06:30:33.647+00:00

Hello, how did you move tabs in Visual Studio 2022? Please share us more detailed repro steps so that we can investigate it further.
This document describes:
When you click and drag the tab of document window, a guide diamond appears. During the drag operation, when the mouse cursor is over one of the arrows in the diamond, a shaded area will appear that shows you where the window will be docked if you release the mouse button now.
Robert DeMaree 111 Reputation points

2022-06-13T13:12:50.617+00:00

If the tab was pinned, I'd (used to) simply click-and-drag to the position that I wanted. I guess this functionality was "fixed" and no longer allowed.

I don't know what you mean about a "diamond", or a "shaded area"--neither shows when I try to move tabs.

I've resolved myself to the fact that I can NOT move tabs anymore--just wanted to know the circumstances surrounding this "upgrade."
Anna Xiu-MSFT 25,801 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-06-22T09:31:22.05+00:00

Sorry for my delay reply!

I am unable to repro your issue on my side and find any release information about moving tabs in Visual Studio 2022. Did you install any thrid party extensions? Please temporarily disable them.
Meanwhile, you can try to repair your VS through VS installer > More > Repair.
Aidan Dearing 85 Reputation points

2023-05-26T21:04:59.13+00:00

Seeing this late, been struggling with this issue too, and I think there was a misunderstanding between the support personnel, Anna appears to be describing tab docking which is not the issue, the issue is that you cannot drag a tab and REORDER it among other tabs in the same docked region.

If you click and hold and drag a tab you do not get to reorder it among other tabs, you instead are forced to choose how to dock it, either in the same window, above, below, or on the left or right, this is not what is desired, it needs to be able to support dragging a tab and changing its position among the other tabs.
Asen Kiprov 60 Reputation points

2023-06-19T08:33:25.3166667+00:00

This is still an outstanding issue in version 17.6.3.
vike 10 Reputation points

2023-06-21T10:00:30.6666667+00:00

I am able to repro when using Options > Environment > Tabs and Windows > Document Tabs > [checked] Show tabs in multiple rows.

If [unchecked] manual tab order by drag-drop is working for me.

It seems manual tab order is only available with Set tab layout: Top
Richard Blundell 0 Reputation points

2023-06-21T10:58:26.22+00:00

This is a regression since a few versions ago. I upgraded from 17.5.something to 17.6.3 and pinned tabs can no longer be re-ordered, instead immediately 'popping out' and asking you where to dock them. Please fix this, Microsoft. Being able to place pinned source file tabs where you want them is important to help you organise tabs when working across multiple files. The only workaround at present seems to be to un-pin them all and then re-pin them in precisely the order you want them. Dragging them around to re-order them used to work fine, but has now regressed.

To reproduce

I've just experimented, and I found that sometimes it works. I opened VS 2022, 17.6.3, and chose "Continue without code". I created two new blank text documents, pinned the two tabs, and I could re-order them fine. But as soon as I added a third new blank text document that was NOT pinned, then the previous two pinned tabs could no longer be re-ordered, instead popping out and requesting a dock location instead of swapping position with the other pinned tab. So it seems (from very quick testing) that the regression has occurred when you have pinned and unpinned tabs, and when this is the case the pinned tab re-ordering feature breaks.
Ted Marcis 15 Reputation points

2023-06-21T12:10:34.74+00:00

I just installed 17.6.4. Well...it IS an improvement, but still not the way things should be. The pinned tabs can now be moved, but any movement right to left always jumps at least 2 tabs, sometimes a row: thankfully, dragging back to the right am able to correctly position the tab.
Ted Marcis 15 Reputation points

2023-06-21T18:44:38.9966667+00:00

Further information about my comment above, with fix in 17.6.4 tabs moving more than 1 tab right to left. I cannot make this happen always. It seems to happen when I have many (like 4 or 5 rows) of pinned tabs, but not when there's only 1 or 2 rows of tabs. Strange. It's easy to workaround but still an unusual UI "nit".
Ted Marcis 15 Reputation points

2023-06-22T15:15:57.39+00:00

Two things. One, issue "**With mutli-row tabs enabled, certain combinations of pinned and unpinned tabs, clicking a pinned tab undocks it", which is marked as fixed, seems identical to this. It seems mostly fixed, but for my comments above.

Second, to add more context to what I've observed. I tried turning on "Optimize rendering for screens with different pixel densities". (I usually leave this "off" (unchecked), although I'd like to use it, because it causes weird scrolling and monitor edge behavior.) Anyway, I checked this option, restarted VS, and then I could no longer move the tabs at all. (Not working this issue.)

Then I reverted the option ("Optimize rendering...) and restarted VS. Then the tabs could be moved again and I no longer experienced the multi-tab "jumping" described above.

Weird. The behavior is definitely different in the recent 17.6.* builds and somewhat inconsistent.**
Mark Langen 0 Reputation points

2023-07-13T22:13:34.0433333+00:00

I wonder if this has to do with the crash?

For a while about a year ago trying to reorder pinned tabs would cause a crash. Maybe the fix that was made to that broke the reordering entirely?
Kevin Lockerby 0 Reputation points

2023-08-08T14:43:21.8366667+00:00

This was a problem in Visual Studio 2017 and Microsoft reported it fixed.
https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/Cant-move-pined-tab-after-update/10371903

In five years it still exists AFTER they say they fixed it five generations ago. It seems to me Microsoft is incapable of fixing something
tharLab 0 Reputation points

2023-08-19T11:43:52.1533333+00:00

@vike comment must be the answer here

I am able to repro when using Options > Environment > Tabs and Windows > Document Tabs > [checked] Show tabs in multiple rows. If [unchecked] manual tab order by drag-drop is working for me. It seems manual tab order is only available with Set tab layout: Top

4 answers

NickS 296 Reputation points

2023-05-24T17:05:48.18+00:00

Moving tabs is now broken in Visual Studio. Every time you try to move a tab to rearrange its position, it thinks you want to move it to a new window. I don't know why Microsoft removed this very useful feature.
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19 people found this answer helpful.
ionut djon iancu 80 Reputation points

2023-05-25T21:35:14.2633333+00:00

Unbelievably frustrating, yes. After updating VS22 every time i try to reorder pinned tabs, the selected tab pops up - literally the moment i click on it - pops out of the row in a new window................................................... how can someone design such idiotic feature is beyond me....

Karen Payne MVP 35,116 Reputation points

2023-05-26T00:43:27.98+00:00

Best solution is to report it with the feedback button, top right corner in Visual Studio.

Mark K 25 Reputation points

2023-05-26T14:01:11.27+00:00

Very disappointed that this no longer works. I used to move tabs around in VS every day.

Kristen Ellegård 30 Reputation points

2023-05-30T09:04:09.5866667+00:00

The feedback button doesn't work in VS2022

NickS 296 Reputation points

2023-05-31T13:30:09.81+00:00

I added a post to the forum that the feedback button is broken - since I could not send them feedback directly that the button was broken.

That's one way to reduce customer feedback on a product!

Ted Marcis 15 Reputation points

2023-05-31T13:56:07.92+00:00

Yes, total bummer. Just installed 17.6.2, not sure if it was broken earlier. I typically have dozes of open tabs, pinned and not. Very disappointing as it makes 17.6.2 feel like 1 step forward and 5 back: depend on this feature (very simple in VSCODE) to keep my sanity.

Tobias 20 Reputation points

2023-06-01T13:12:34.04+00:00

I have the same issue after updating to 17.6.1, which previously worked fine in 17.4 (I think, possibly even 17.5). Whenever I click a pinned tab with multi-row tabs enabled, it pops up into another window. Very annoying and makes me lose overview about the important files if I have to ignore the pinning feature.

Also, as other's have told, after writing a complete feedback, the submit button just results in an unexpected error.

Petkus, Jim 15 Reputation points

2023-06-01T21:07:14.8633333+00:00

Very frustrating combination of problems. Cannot drag tabs (sometimes, even clicking a tab will cause it to undock and go into its own window) and cannot provide feedback via the only mechanism that is provided.

From what I could find, this bug was discovered and fixed in a later preview version of VS 2022, but this update was still released with the bug?

Dmitri Mogilevski 10 Reputation points

2023-06-02T15:06:18.09+00:00

Yes, a single-click on a pinned tab undocks it and makes it a floating window - every time.

kv 10 Reputation points

2023-06-06T10:41:50.96+00:00

After Googleizing this issue, it seems like some version of this problem has been occuring since at least 2010. Even when the tabs are 'working', they're always a little bit off and don't seem to snap into place quite like they should. They never feel like they're dragging smoothly to re-order, but rather, some half-float-sort-of-thing where they're eithier going fly out into the world and become their very own new window or get hammered back into the list (probably not where you want them) depending on where you happen to let go of them. My suspicion is that someone on the VS dev team fixed it a long time ago and it was either documented poorly or it was bad code that affected other things (or both?) so that now, every so often someone somewhere on the dev team comes along and either disables that old fix in order to fix something else, or they refactor it somehow to 'improve' the code and the issue pops up again. That's just my guess as to why it keeps showing back up.

As for the current behavior, a single-click results in the tab becoming un-docked which is just not at all how tabs are supposed to work: I wanted to switch focus to the tab, not open a new window. That's why tabs exist.

Personally, I never use them in a seperate window anyway, so I'd be ok with it if they required a right-click to undock or remove the un-docking of tabs entirely. Another wish-list behavior/option would be if you could remove all sorting/grouping or allow custom sort/groups. Alphabetical/Most recent (first/last) as the only options, just doesn't cover all the ways I'd like to sort the tabs. Additionally, it doesn't seem like you can re-order them at all when they're shown left/right, only when on top. Too bad, I'd almost like to try them on the side but I won't without the ability to re-order.

All in all, I use the community version of VS so it's pretty hard to complain about something so powerful and (mostly) awesome, when it's free. But, it is an extermely frustrating issue when it makes pinned tabs useless. Oh well. I'm sure they'll get 'fixed' back to 'functional' soon enough.

Petkus, Jim 15 Reputation points

2023-06-21T19:57:28.1233333+00:00

I think the suggestion of needing some form of explicit action to undock a tab is a great idea.

Something like dragging while holding down shift or ctrl. What the explicit thing is really doesn't matter. I would be surprised if the majority of users drag tabs to undock them and redock them.

I have done enough pair programming, watching videos, streaming, etc to know that most people are dragging tabs to reorganize the order, not to undock them.

COVET Pierre-Antoine 0 Reputation points

2023-06-27T21:18:41.7+00:00

Bug or feature ? Anyway plz give it back as before !

Even sometime just clicking on a pinned tab is forcing it into a new window. On both my computers :(
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Jacob Clinton 26 Reputation points

2023-07-13T09:46:03.4133333+00:00

I've just updated Visual Studio to version 17.6.5 and the issue seems to have been resolved. I can now drag to reorder multiple pinned tabs and undock them only if I move my cursor a clear distance away.
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1 person found this answer helpful.
Asen Kiprov 60 Reputation points

2023-07-13T09:52:37.2233333+00:00

Confirmed. The fix was actually pushed with 17.6.4.

Kevin Lockerby 0 Reputation points

2023-08-08T15:08:31.3933333+00:00

It is NOT resolved. Only in 17.7 Preview. This has been an off and on again problem for Microsoft since VS 2017. They reported it fixed years ago and it keeps coming back. Either they are a bunch of liers or they simply don't know how to do it. It's so FRUSTRATING. I am seriously thinking about trying out JetGBrains Rider
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mishafauci 0 Reputation points

2023-06-02T19:06:51.03+00:00

I am having this kind of issue in my visual studio, however, I tried to uninstall and install the new version as well...
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NickS 296 Reputation points

2023-06-05T13:34:27.42+00:00

Microsoft always tells you to uninstall VS and reinstall. This never works. I think this is just to make you waste some time and hopefully forget about the issue...

mishafauci 0 Reputation points

2023-06-05T22:37:52.1833333+00:00

i bet so, because many others have same views like you
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tharLab 0 Reputation points

2023-08-19T11:45:07.2766667+00:00

@vike comment must be the answer here

I am able to repro when using Options > Environment > Tabs and Windows > Document Tabs > [checked] Show tabs in multiple rows. If [unchecked] manual tab order by drag-drop is working for me. It seems manual tab order is only available with Set tab layout: Top
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Why can I no longer move tabs in Visual Studio 2022?

To reproduce

4 answers