I'm a new Win7 user and while researching how to tune Win7, I ran across a tip that seems to be working really well for me so far. It should work for XP and Vista users also but works really nicely in Win7.
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TIP: Modern computer screens are wider but the extra width is not used for most applications. Since vertical real estate is quite valuable, why not move the taskbar to the side instead of leaving it at the bottom where it's always been.
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I first tried moving the taskbar to the left side but found it distracting since most of the action while reading or composing text happens on the left side. So I moved it to the right side and it's very handy there.
I personally don't like Win7's Aero theme since it makes things on the taskbar harder to see/read for me, so I use the "Windows Classic" theme. --- Reason I mention this is that after moving the taskbar to the right side using the Classic theme, I tried the Aero theme again. The taskbar icons are much bigger using the Aero theme so they filled up the taskbar on the right side rather quickly since there's less room for icons vertically than horizontally. --- Going back to the "Windows Classic" theme, the icons are quite small and there's lots of room on the taskbar with extra space to spare. If you try this tip, try the Windows Classic theme once and you'll see a big difference in the available space on the right side taskbar. Be sure to select "small icons" for the taskbar. (right click the taskbar > properties > tick "use small icons")
Another nice thing about the taskbar on the right side is that every icon just takes up one line of space which is less than the horizontal spacing when the taskbar is at the bottom of the screen.
A third plus is that the icons in the system tray by the clock (now called the notification area in Win7) appear in two columns so take up less space vertically. I used to hide most of the icons in the notification area to save space for the normal taskbar icons. Now I enable all icons and it's very nice to see them all, all of the time. (right click the taskbar > properties > notification area, customize > tick always show all icons on taskbar and notification area.)
It does take some getting used to having the taskbar on the right side after seeing it at the bottom all these years. Reflexes want to move the mouse to the bottom for taskbar action. But after a week with the taskbar on the right side of the screen, I'm really beginning to like it. The gain in vertical real estate for every application is soooo nice!
Hope this helps some folks,
Sky
-----------------
TIP: Modern computer screens are wider but the extra width is not used for most applications. Since vertical real estate is quite valuable, why not move the taskbar to the side instead of leaving it at the bottom where it's always been.
-----------------
I first tried moving the taskbar to the left side but found it distracting since most of the action while reading or composing text happens on the left side. So I moved it to the right side and it's very handy there.
I personally don't like Win7's Aero theme since it makes things on the taskbar harder to see/read for me, so I use the "Windows Classic" theme. --- Reason I mention this is that after moving the taskbar to the right side using the Classic theme, I tried the Aero theme again. The taskbar icons are much bigger using the Aero theme so they filled up the taskbar on the right side rather quickly since there's less room for icons vertically than horizontally. --- Going back to the "Windows Classic" theme, the icons are quite small and there's lots of room on the taskbar with extra space to spare. If you try this tip, try the Windows Classic theme once and you'll see a big difference in the available space on the right side taskbar. Be sure to select "small icons" for the taskbar. (right click the taskbar > properties > tick "use small icons")
Another nice thing about the taskbar on the right side is that every icon just takes up one line of space which is less than the horizontal spacing when the taskbar is at the bottom of the screen.
A third plus is that the icons in the system tray by the clock (now called the notification area in Win7) appear in two columns so take up less space vertically. I used to hide most of the icons in the notification area to save space for the normal taskbar icons. Now I enable all icons and it's very nice to see them all, all of the time. (right click the taskbar > properties > notification area, customize > tick always show all icons on taskbar and notification area.)
It does take some getting used to having the taskbar on the right side after seeing it at the bottom all these years. Reflexes want to move the mouse to the bottom for taskbar action. But after a week with the taskbar on the right side of the screen, I'm really beginning to like it. The gain in vertical real estate for every application is soooo nice!
Hope this helps some folks,
Sky
Last edited:
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