Windows Taskbar Tips and Tricks

I find that having the "Task Bar" at the top is best for me, but sometimes it hides the top of a open app. and that makes it hard to klick on menus and such. Any suggestions?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sounds like you want the "always on top" option for the taskbar.

HI Bob, I have windows8 with 32bit & 64bit. The problem i have is in 32bit i have unwanted apps showing up on taskbar and screen but not with 64bit. How do i fix this. I am also very much an amateur with pcs.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Windows 8? Are you sure you don't mean Windows 7? Win8 is still in the "gee whiz" development stage as far as I know. And I'm not clear when you say you have both 32-bit and 64-bit, since they really are different operating systems -- unless you have 32-bit on one computer and 64-bit on another. Now, down to your "unwanted apps" on the taskbar. You don't mention which apps, so there's not much I can suggest. Can you clarify?

Great one.

But if the following were given a mention I think, it would have been better-

Windowskey + D = Show Desktop
Windowskey + M = Toogles minimize open Windows

Select desired Windows by clicking buttons using Control Key & you can cascade / tile them; which is very helpful when working with File Transfers.

Ravi.

in superbar, left clicking the small area at the right automatically brings the desktop.( no need to right click)
icon images are shown instead of names till you hover on the icon.
customising which running applications are to be shown at the right hand side is easy.just click the 'show hidden icons' button and click customise.

I've always wanted to know how to set up Windows so that the folders that were open on the taskbar when the system was shut down automatically open again when it is rebooted. This was the default in NT, but when I upgraded to 2000 I never did figure out how to set this.

But what about those annoying little balloons that pop up. I have never found a way to stop them from showing up.

I added a toolbar to the right side of my task bar that holds all my desktop icons. Then I can hide the icons on the desktop itself and see my background picture without all those icons in the way. Later I added an additional toolbar with my game shortcuts. It requires a click on the appropriate toolbar to show the menu, but I like having the clear view of my background picture. I find the icons distracting.

Chak:
Another useful function of the quick launch is that it allows you to launch apps with an easy keyboard shortcut.
Windows key + 1-0 (these 10 numerals correspond to the first 10 items in the quick launch) will launch whatever you put there.
I find it especially useful to re-start or shutdown the computer this way with shortcuts for those 2 things sitting in the quick launch.
Joe

When I try to download 7 Taskbar Tweaker from RaMMichael, the download is intercepted by my anti virus program with the msg that the .rar file contains a Trojan.

Anyone else experiencing any problem downloading or running this program?

Two free program suggestions directly relating to earlier comments:
1. Regarding the need to regularly access the volume icon - check out Volumouse, You will almost never have to access the Volume icon again, and can simply and quickly run the volume up and down as you wish with the scroll wheel. I've used it for years and never encountered any issue.
2. Regarding keeping the desktop clear of icons - check out Fences. Free, superbly developed, and allows you to set up your desktop as you wish, then remove or return your icons with a simple double-click on the desktop. Have also used it for some time without any problems.

I know that in Windows Vista you could set windows media player so that when it was minimized it had the controls right on the taskbar. Is their any way to do this on Windows 7 Home Premium? If so how is that set up, any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advanced.

As an accomplished windows user I thought I was prepared for an accidental resizing of my taskbar, but I was WRONG. On a XP laptop I "inherited" from my daughter I unlocked the taskbar in order to get it to auto hide.

Soon my finger on the pad dragged the taskbar to double height. It was IMPOSSIBLE to resize back to single heigth!! It seems, if I rember correctly, that there were so many icons in the tray that these prevented the single height from being permitted. Even expanding the tray and shutting down as many tray icons as possible there were still too many. I had to do a system restore, which ruined my Adobe update, to get it back to single height.

Is there another way to force a resizing?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Not that I know of. Maybe booting into Safe Mode would have helped.

On the bottom of my screen, to the far right, is a little box with the date and time and some other stuff. I don't know if that's even part of the task bar.

When I restart computer, programs show up there that I don't want, and have to exit. Does that mean that they are always running in the background? How to get rid of them?

EDITOR'S NOTE: See http://askbobrankin.com/startup_programs.html for info on how to manage your startup programs.

Does anybody else keep their Taskbar at the Top of the screen? Besides Me?

I don't know about other people, but I move MY taskbar to the TOP of the screen, where God intended it! Why, in heaven's name, Microsoft put it on the bottom, when everything ELSE is at the TOP, is more than I can imagine. I mean, THINK about it: in any application at all, all of the controls and important parts are at the top -- the title bar, menu bar, icons, ribbon (if there is one), address bar, minimize-restore-close buttons -- you name it, they're ALL at the top of the window. EVERYTHING in Windows is "top-oriented". If your window is maximized, the controls are all at the top of the screen. WHY, then, is the Taskbar -- arguably one of the most important parts of Windows itself -- at the BOTTOM of the screen?!?

I put it at the Top.    &;nbsp;:)

(Of course, I also alter the "start" button to read "WinXP", but that's an entirely different tale!)

Good article. Windows 7 also has Show Desktop as one of the options when paging thru available windows using Alt-Tab, but not sure how useful this is. And article mentions right-clicking in Notifications area to get menu with Show Desktop, but that is available from right-clicking in any empty area of taskbar.

I select "always show" for volume and for on AC or battery for my laptop but these icons are gone next time I start my PC.

To Glenn P.,
I also keep my Taskbar at the top as I have the command line for AutoCAD at the bottom. I used to occasionally have interference with the Micro$oft default. The fact that I am also using Autohide tends to drive the IT people rather nuts at times when they need to remotely access my workstation.

I also have have a "Desktop Toolbar" anchored with AutoHide invoked on the left side of my monitor. Makes it easier to access my desktop icons with a single click.

There is another coolest way to view your task bar items. Window key + tab. It will give 3d view of all the active items on your task bar. This is more cooler than windows key + 1-0

I can't find an answer to this question anywhere. I want to make the icons in the taskbar larger, without making the icons in the start menu larger. I've already downloaded viglance, which is great, but doesn't address this problem. I'd also like to know how I can get more icons to show up in my start menu. I hate having a cluttered desktop, but don't want to search all my programs to find what I want. Is there a solution?

my icons are on the taskbar as well on my desktop. How do I remove them without deleting them from the desktop as well?

Bill