Increasing size of task bar

[Paul]

Windows 2000 SP4. I drag the upper edge of the taskbar up so that it
occupies two rows. I was thinking that my tasks on the taskbar would
occupy two rows so that each one is wider, and I can see the full
filename.

Nada, doesn't happen. The quick launch buttons occupy an entire row of
the two rows. I'm (figuratively) smacking my forehead against the
display. I have to increase the height of taskbar to three rows in
order to get two rows for my tasks. Is there anyway to prevent the
quick launch buttons from hogging and wasing an entire row of space?

Thanks.

 

[Roger Fink]

The quicklaunch application icons come in two sizes. If you are using the
larger size, then changing to the smaller size will greatly decrease the
space they take up, but you would need to be comfortable with using the
smaller icons (which I'm not). To see what size you have, place the pointer
somewhere between the rightmost icon and the system tray, then right click
it. If the icon is up against the tray, drag the whole thing to the left to
make room. Mouse over "View", and the large and small options will display

 

[Paul]

Hi, Roger,

I'm using small icons. The problem isn't that they take up too much
room. The problem is that the entire upper row of the taskbar
contains them and nothing else. Most of that row is blank, and the
tasks themselves are relegated to the bottom row. In contrast, in XP,
the task bar occupies a small rectangular space at the left side of
the taskbar, covering both top and bottom rows. I understand that
Windows 2000 is earlier than XP, but I can't imagine what the
designers had in mind when then put this "feature" into Windows 2000.

 

[Roger Fink]

OK, I think I get it now. One thing I was just able to do here in W2K was to
create an additional row and move the quicklaunch bar to it, and then move
it as far rightward as I care to. When it gets short of space for the icons,
then they start spilling over into the new row. In fact I created two
additional rows and at the moment the 10 quicklaunch icons occupy all three
rows and take about two inches of lateral space next to the system tray. All
the blank area to the left is usable for minimizing open files and they
occupy all three rows, so I think that would give you the economy you seek,
since there is no vacant area anywhere, but I'd say the chances of this GUI
arrangement misbehaving are about 110 percent.

As of a month ago I was new to XP, and I've been finding out that you can
pretty much duplicate the Win98/W2K GUI in every way, but with the added
bonus that in XP you can lock the quicklaunch bar. If you can find a hack to
do this in W2K (and I'll bet it exists), you would have a better chance of
maintaining your settings.

 

[Paul]

Actually, I think I can get it the way I want without hacking. I just
had to muck around a bit more to get what you just described below.
When the quick-launch icons take up the entire top row, I can drag the
bottom row of tasks to the unused parts of the top row by double-
clicking-and-dragging the manipulation bar along the left edge of the
bottom row, then dragging it to resize it. Sort of how you described.

Thanks