Bug: Taskbar buttons are half-width and missing

[Steve]

Windows Vista has this new feature where it displays a taskbar at the bottom
of the screen and then inserts buttons representing the various applications
running on the system. If you want to click from app to app you simply click
on the taskbar button and that application will pop to the top of the
desktop's z-order.

Oh, what's that you say? This is a feature that's been around since Windows
95? Hum... If it's that old you'd think they'd have figured out how to get
this basic functionality to work by now! But that's a Microsoft engineer for
you... Microsoft is probably the only place in the private sector that
actually has lower standards for quality than the public sector.

Here's a photo so that you can see for youself:

<a
href="http://s220.photobucket.com/albums/dd209/Scuba_Steve1974/?action=view&current=BuggyTaskbar.jpg"
target="_blank"><img
src="http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd209/Scuba_Steve1974/BuggyTaskbar.jpg" border="0" alt="Vista bug: taskbar buttons"></a>

I have at least 10 applications running on my system right now but all you
see is 1 squished button representing MSPaint and a set of up/down arrows to
its right that I can click on to scroll down through rows of buttons for all
the apps running on my system. Each row has 2 squished buttons AT MOST! The
remaining 900-1000 pixels or so in the taskbar are permanently empty.

I use classic mode for Vista to make it a little less of a resource hog, so
is Microsoft punishing me for failing to use their precious aero Vista look?

Being a Microsoft product user for nearly a decade and a half I'm well aware
that its engineers are neither interested in or capable of fixing a bug like
this and that it will remain in existance until Vista is replaced with a new
OS, so mainly I'm looking for people who want to share in the amusement of
how pathetic this bug is of the mighty Vista.

 

[Chirag]

Hi Steve,

I think this is because the taskbar is alloted very little space for the
running applications and the Quick Launch bar is alloted lot of space.
Right-click on the empty space in the taskbar and uncheck "Lock the Taskbar"
menu item. Now you should be able to the handles that you can move around to
allot more space to running applications area. Does this solve the issue for
you?

- Chirag

PowerShow - View multiple PowerPoint slide shows simultaneously
http://officeone.mvps.org/powershow/powershow.html

 

[Steve]

Hi Chiraq,

A day after posting this I discovered that the handle for adjusting the
width of the portion of the taskbar allocated for application buttons was
small. I stretched it back out and it worked. For a time. Then I reopened
my laptop and the region had shrunk back to that tiny size. This happens to
me on a daily basis! I stretch it back out, lock the setting, and then after
restoring my laptop from a sleep state it will shrink down that area. This
is extremely annoying. First of all, I did nothing to allow Vista to reduce
the size of that region, and second of all I have locked the toolbar! It
should never EVER change!

I think it will be fun to see how long it takes for Microsoft to fix this
one. Months? Years? Ever?

 

[Richard in AZ]

Have you locked the taskbar after adjusting it?

Hi Chiraq,

A day after posting this I discovered that the handle for adjusting the
width of the portion of the taskbar allocated for application buttons was
small. I stretched it back out and it worked. For a time. Then I reopened
my laptop and the region had shrunk back to that tiny size. This happens to
me on a daily basis! I stretch it back out, lock the setting, and then after
restoring my laptop from a sleep state it will shrink down that area. This
is extremely annoying. First of all, I did nothing to allow Vista to reduce
the size of that region, and second of all I have locked the toolbar! It
should never EVER change!

I think it will be fun to see how long it takes for Microsoft to fix this
one. Months? Years? Ever?