How to make Eclipse behave well in the Windows 7 taskbar?

Question

All other apps that can be pinned to the taskbar behave well. But Eclipse doesn't show recently open projects when I right click it. It also doesn't allow to pin some projects inside it. Note that I have the JS version of Eclipse Helios. Which spawns a new and different taskbar icon after loading.

Answer 1

Specify the latest available Java VM in your eclipse.ini. I.e.:

-vm jdk1.6.0_10\jre\bin\client\jvm.dll 

1. Make sure they are on separate lines
2. Anything after the "vmargs" is taken to be vm arguments

(More info)

Or alternatively add the java bin folder to your Windows PATH before the "windows32" folder, because otherwise eclipse uses "javaw.exe" in the win32 folder instead of the JDK one.

Answer 2

Riccardo's solution from the Eclipse bug report worked for me, but I don't get recently opened projects, etc. from the task bar. Is anyone experiencing that these workarounds restore that behavior?

I have the same problem on Windows 7 x64 with Helios x64, but for me the following workaround works with the option "Always combine, hide labels" for taskbar buttons.

• Check your "eclipse.ini" for the specified VM and make sure the path points to the bin directory of your JDK or JRE (and not to javaw.exe). For me the argument is "D:/Development/Languages/Java/Development Kit/bin/" without quotes.
• Unpin Eclipse from the taskbar or delete the shortcut
• Run "eclipse.exe" from the explorer and choose your workspace
• Pin Eclipse to the taskbar after the splash screen was loaded and when the main window is shown