I want more tasks on my taskbar, but how?

G

George Adams

I've just upgraded from Windows 2000 to XP. Back in Win2K, I could
launch maybe 24 or so tasks (i.e. MSIE, Notepad, Outlook, etc) and have
all their buttons appear on a single line of my taskbar before it
started wrapping to another line (which required the little up/down
arrow to navigate).

In XP, however, it appears that I can only get about 12 task buttons on
the taskbar before they start rolling over to another line. I tried
setting my Display Cpanel : Appearance : Windows and Buttons setting to
"Windows Classic Style" instead of "Windows XP Style", but that only
lets me fit maybe 15-16 tasks before they start wrapping to another line.

Is there a way to customize the taskbar so I can fit my huge number of
tasks back on a single line? (preferably without having to use the
"taskbar button grouping feature", which I don't really care for.)

Thanks to anyone who can help.
 
G

Guest

Right-click on the taskbar. Select Unlock the taskbar. Drag the "separator"
to the right to get more room.
 
G

George Adams

Thanks, Homer; I think you're thinking of the Quick Launch buttons,
though. I don't need more room for them (I only have 3), and I have the
separator all the way to the LEFT, which gives the taskbar buttons all
the remaining space (other than what the tray icons take up).

What I want to find out is how to fit more of those taskbar buttons
(i.e. the running tasks) on the bar before they start wrapping onto
another line.
 
A

Andrew Bailey

Hi George,

Google for a free proggy called "X-Setup" one of its many features is to be
able to specify (in pixels) the width of each task button in the taskbar.

Andy
 
G

Guest

Sorry about that. I had to boot into WinXP to check this so if you still want
to do it manually--right-click on the destop, select properties, go to
appearance tab, select advanced. The setting is under caption buttons. This
will reduce them some but will also reduce them on your title bar and it
makes all of the quicklaunch buttons quite small if you overdo it. So maybe
you're better off with the program Andrew Bailey suggested.
 
E

Elden Fenison

Is there a way to customize the taskbar so I can fit my huge number of
tasks back on a single line? (preferably without having to use the
"taskbar button grouping feature", which I don't really care for.)
Click to expand...

If you unlock your taskbar, you can grab the top and drag it toward
the top of your screen (assuming it's at the bottom) and that will
give you a double layer for your taskbar buttons.
 
D

DanS

Sorry about that. I had to boot into WinXP to check this so if you
still want to do it manually--right-click on the destop, select
properties, go to appearance tab, select advanced. The setting is
under caption buttons. This will reduce them some but will also reduce
them on your title bar and it makes all of the quicklaunch buttons
quite small if you overdo it. So maybe you're better off with the
program Andrew Bailey suggested.
Click to expand...

it will also reduce the size of the icons in the system tray as well.
 
K

Ken Blake

In
George Adams said:
Thanks, Homer; I think you're thinking of the Quick Launch
buttons,
though. I don't need more room for them (I only have 3), and I
have
the separator all the way to the LEFT, which gives the taskbar
buttons all the remaining space (other than what the tray icons
take
up).
What I want to find out is how to fit more of those taskbar
buttons
(i.e. the running tasks) on the bar before they start wrapping
onto
another line.
Click to expand...


Although by default the Quick Launch Bar appears on the Task Bar,
it doesn't have to. Consider dragging it off the Task Bar (unlock
the Task Bar first) on putting on another side (for example the
left) of the screeen.
 
G

George Adams

I want to thank all who responded to this, especially Andrew and Anando
for their registry tweaks.

Setting HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics\MinWidth to something
like "-300" has indeed shrunk down the size of the taskbar icons so I
fit more items on the taskbar before it wraps to another line.

However, this registry tweak makes the taskbar icons PERMANENTLY small.
In a normal Window environment, taskbar icons start off fairly wide
(150 pixels or so), which allows maybe 5-6 of them to fit on a taskbar.
When more tasks are launched, the icons begin shrinking in width so
they can all still fit on the taskbar.

By setting MinWidth, my taskbar icons are now permanently small. If I'm
only running one program, its icon is 35 pixels wide, and the entire
rest of the taskbar is unused.

So... is there a way to have the best of both worlds? Allow the taskbar
icons to start off wide, but shrink down to a minimum of 35 pixels as
more and more tasks are launched before forcing a new line to be added
to the taskbar?

Hope that makes sense. Thanks again!
 
C

cmsix

Drag your taskbar to the left side of the screen and have it appear
vertically. The buttons will then be stacked on top of each other and
you will have room for plenty. You can also stretch it out wider and
will get more or a legible label for the buttons. You'll probably want
to tell it to autohide.

cmsix
 

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