Need more icons in the taskbar

[IvarSand]

When the number of icons in the taskbar increases to more than (in my case)
12 a new taskbar line is created and the last icon is put on that line which
is the one shown. To show the first taskbar line an up arrow button at the
end of the current taskbar line must be pressed. Windows 95 did not have this
feature, but produced space for the new icon in the taskbar by making the
icons in the taskbar narrower. My questions are:
- Is it possible to activate the same view that Windows 95 had, or
- is it possible to increase the limit of available icons in the taskbar to
a value higher than 12?

 

[John Inzer]

When the number of icons in the taskbar increases to more than (in my
case) 12 a new taskbar line is created and the last icon is put on
that line which is the one shown. To show the first taskbar line an
up arrow button at the end of the current taskbar line must be
pressed. Windows 95 did not have this feature, but produced space for
the new icon in the taskbar by making the icons in the taskbar
narrower. My questions are:
- Is it possible to activate the same view that Windows 95 had, or
- is it possible to increase the limit of available icons in the
taskbar to a value higher than 12?

================================================
One alternative may be to increase the height
of the taskbar by dragging the edge.

--


John Inzer MS-MVP
Digital Media Experience

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

 

[IvarSand]

Thanks. I know about this solution, but haven't actually tried it. The
resulting increase in the number of icons would probably be enough for me,
but a double taskbar would reduce the available space on the screen although
that wouldn’t matter on a big screen. My screen is only 15" so I am a bit
reluctant to try. I was hoping of a solution in the form of setting or
changing a parameter in the registry or something like that.

 

[Bob I]

R-click the Taskbar, then View, then select "Small Icons"

 

[John Inzer]

Thanks. I know about this solution, but haven't actually tried it. The
resulting increase in the number of icons would probably be enough
for me, but a double taskbar would reduce the available space on the
screen although that wouldn't matter on a big screen. My screen is
only 15" so I am a bit reluctant to try. I was hoping of a solution
in the form of setting or changing a parameter in the registry or
something like that.

===========================
Trying it is no problem...if you don't
like it just change it back.

If you Auto-hide the taskbar it only
pops up when you drag your pointer
to the bottom of the screen.

--


John Inzer MS-MVP
Digital Media Experience

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

 

[Lem]

R-click the Taskbar, then View, then select "Small Icons"

IIRC, View > "small icons" only works for the Quick Launch toolbar, not
for the entire Task Bar.
--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm

 

[Bob I]

Ah, yes, I have my Taskbar to the Right hand side of the screen, and
that makes the Quick launch Icons the same size as the running programs
buttons. Humm, perhaps thats what the OP should do too!

 

[Ivar Sand]

Sorry, this does not work. On my computer all the space in the taskbar is
used for icons and nothing is wasted. Classic view has the same problem, i.e.
when the number of icons in the taskbar increases to more than 12 or 13 a new
taskbar line is created.

 

[Ivar Sand]

I'm sorry about my less than enthusiastic reply. I am now trying out your
suggestion of using 2 taskbar lines to see if it works for me. I have noted 1
positive thing about 2 taskbar lines: Instead of showing only time (hours)
now also day of week an date are shown. I have made the taskbar line unlocked
so that it easy for me to make 2 lines when needed, and to return to 1 line
when possible. I have also noted your suggestion of trying Auto-hide.

 

[Ivar Sand]

Just a note of experience:
For some time now I've practised keeping the taskbar unlocked so as to
easily expand it into 2 lines when needed so that no icons are hidden. I'm
using an explorer window holding the program shortcuts that I am using as a
menu. This window got fewer lines when the taskbar was expanded to two lines
so that some of the menu items were moved from one column to the next. I once
selected and executed a wrong menu item because of this. I just have to get
accustomed to the menu window being a bit smaller and the menu items being
positioned a bit differently. Still it seems to be an improvement over the
situation when icons in the taskbar were hidden so I've decided to continue
this way for the time being.

 

[Jose]

Just a note of experience:
For some time now I've practised keeping the taskbar unlocked so as to
easily expand it into 2 lines when needed so that no icons are hidden. I'm
using an explorer window holding the program shortcuts that I am using asa
menu. This window got fewer lines when the taskbar was expanded to two lines
so that some of the menu items were moved from one column to the next. I once
selected and executed a wrong menu item because of this. I just have to get
accustomed to the menu window being a bit smaller and the menu items being
positioned a bit differently. Still it seems to be an improvement over the
situation when icons in the taskbar were hidden so I've decided to continue
this way for the time being.

Here is an annoying tweak to consider.

If you can't make the icons any smaller, reduce their width by
removing all that annoying text that shows up next to the icon by
adding or changing the MinWidth in the registry here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

Here is some users experience and some untested by me options:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t410888.html

I experimented and set added/set mine to -300 because that was
supposed to remove the text part of the display, but I still got the
icon and first letter, so I need another adjustment to get just the
icon, but it takes too long to experiment and I am generally
impatient.

You can apparently reduce your minimized icons to the size of those in
Quick Launch.

Some icons of the same program will then stack themselves into a
group, and that may be a problem for you. I could not think of 12
separate programs I wanted to run at once so if I opened up multiple
copies of the Recycle Bin and minimized them, they just stacked up in
a group and a number appears next to the icon. Same for multiple
Firefoxes.
No sir, can't say that I like it.

There may be other adjustments to be made out there.

This is per user (HKCU) and a logon cycle is required.

There is a good logo I saw while hunting: "<the Vista Logo> Vista
Incompatible". There is a similar tweak for Vista, but this ain't it.

Jose

 

[Ivar Sand]

Reducing the icon width to include only 1 letter of text has no significance
because Windows XP does that already. In Windows 95 I managed to create a
taskbar with 35 icons in it before a new taskbar line was produced in the
same way as in Windows XP. The 35 icons had no text parts. (So it was wrong
what I said that Windows 95 did not have the feature of producing a new
taskbar line, but it allows so many icons in the taskbar that the problem is
rare.)