Transform your XP Taskbar!

[dewaaz]

A tutorial on how to make your XP taskbar look like this (almost all natively!):

Hey everyone

What I’ve essentially done is to remove the startbar, whilst retaining all of its functionality. You may see many interesting desktop setups surfacing from time to time from various people, but they usually place aesthetics above ease-of-use, or move essential functions to the desktop (again sacrificing on ease-of-use).

What has made me happy with the way I’ve managed to get things the way they are is that practically all of this has been done natively, with no registry hacks or anything needed. Also, FULL start menu functionality has been retained, since a couple of these functions come in handy from time to time – no use changing things if it makes daily use of the PC more bothersome!

What I’ve done has been mainly to come up with a setup that suits me personally, and while not overly complicated, did take a while to ‘perfect’ to my liking. Different people have different tastes, and I’m sure that if there is a particular aspect of this setup that you don’t like, that you should be able to play around and experiment until you are happy with what you have!

With 7’s RTM and XP finally dying a slow old death, I’m not sure how much scope there will be for people to enjoy this – but if there’s a few of you out there that do (and I’ve received a lot of PMs about this in the past so I’m sure there’s still a few of you out there!), I’ll be happy. Spread the XP love! :D She’s served us well lol

Anyway onto the tute:

1. Use any visual style you like. The one I’m using here (which seems to work exceptionally well) is a custom mod of Ambient VS by tornado 5 (linky). The mod was made by someone with some advice from myself, but I’m sure the original should suit nicely. Most visual styles I’ve experimented with have worked well.

2. Change your icon spacing to 53 (for vertical AND horizontal). To do this, right-click on your desktop and go to Properties, then click on the Appearance tab. Click on the Advanced button, then find the two ‘Icon Spacing’ entries under the ‘Items’ dropdown menu.

a)

While there, change your Icon Sizing (listed under ‘Icon’) to size 48.

3. Get rid of your start button! I used Start Killer for this, a nifty little app that is free for use! If you need to call up the windows menu, you can always use the windows key anyway, or exit the app from the system tray.

4. To get the different icon groupings, imagine the entire taskbar as 5 distinct areas:

a)

My computer; Show desktop (it’s supposed to look cut off at the moment)

b)

Drives/Folders. In my case: System (usu. C:\); Documents; Pictures; Music; Movies/TV Shows; Miscellaneous (downloads, etc.)

c)

This is the interesting one:

i.

The big icons represent your most commonly used programs

ii.

The pop out menu is the actual START MENU (

‘All Programs’

) – this means the pop out menu will expand and contract as you install and uninstall items automatically! :D

iii.

Point to note: There is a gap between the last big icon visible and the pop out start menu because once taskbars are locked, everything shrinks back into place. You’ll have to compensate for this, but this is dead easy. You’ll get the hang of this as you play around.

d)

This is just a small empty spacer to keep open applications a little but further away on their own.

e)

Open applications.

f)

‘Special functions’ popout menu – the remaining start menu functions that I wanted to keep handy for occasional use. This nicely moves sideways when applications open that use icons in the system tray, and returns nicely when they are closed.

So what are these ‘5 distinct areas’? Essentially, they’re just toolbars! What I did was to make a folder in my C drive called “Toolbars” and create folders which would contain the contents of each folder. So for my area “A”, I made a folder in the ‘Toolbars’ folder called ‘farleft’, and placed a shortcut to both My Computer and Show Desktop in there.

With “Area B”, I made a folder called ‘midleft’ in the ‘Toolbars’ folder and placed a shortcut to each of my drives (since I have a separate drive for docs, music, movies, downloads, etc.) – but you can just make shortcuts to particular folders just as easily. Try to have an even number though, so it looks nice lol

Area C was a bit different:

• I placed a specific file directly in the ‘Toolbars’ folder. Essentially it’s a CLSID folder – it’s a folder which points directly to “All Programs” on your start menu. You can get it from http://www.herbystweaks.net/taskbar.htm - download TaskbarMenus.zip, and place the folder that points to “All Programs” on your start menu in the ‘Toolbars’ folder.
  
• I then made shortcuts of my most commonly used programs, copied them, navigated to the All Programs section (use the CLSID folder if it’s easier) and paste them there. Now your program shortcuts should come up in the All Programs section of your start menu.
  

Area D: Easy – I just made a folder called ‘blank’ with nothing in it.

Area E: Nothing to mention.

Area F: I made a folder called ‘Special’ and placed shortcuts to Search, Run, Control Panel, Shutdown, etc. – I do know the keyboard shortcuts myself, but it’s always nice to see an actual menu function for them, especially when setting something like this up for people who don’t know the shortcuts. Anyway, I’ve made the shortcuts myself, and they can be downloaded from [HERE]

Now to actually create the area/toolbars on your taskbar:

• Right-click an empty space on your taskbar and UNTICK “Lock the taskbar”.
  
• Right-click on the taskbar again, click on Toolbars, and then select New Toolbar...
  

• Now you will create your first toolbar (
  Area A
  ). When you select the folder called “farleft”, DO NOT click OK. Right-click on it, go to Rename, and rename it with a SINGLE BLANK CHARACTER (ALT + 0160. Or copy this: >?<). Confirm the renaming, then click OK. Click and drag the toolbar to the far left of the taskbar. There are two options you want to select now. Right-click an empty space CLOSE to the new toolbar you made, and TICK “Show title”. Also right-click and click on View, then Small Icons.
  
  
• Do the same thing for the next group of icons
  Area B
  >), except don’t bother about renaming the folder. Once you’ve made the toolbar though, right click on an area close to the icons and UNTICK “Show title”. Also right-click and go to View, then select Small Icons.
  
  
• For
  Area C
  >, create a new toolbar again and navigate to the “All Programs” CLSID folder. Once created, ensure to right-click in an area on the toolbar and select View, then BIG icons.
  
  

• This taskbar will be big – but all you do is drag/resize it until it’s so small you can only see
  X
  > number of icons (where X is the number of ‘commonly used programs’ you added initially to the ‘All Programs' menu). Once you’ve resized the toolbar, you can drag/drop/rearrange the icons to suit!:DD Bring all your commonly used apps out front and the start menu categories are left in the pop-out menu!
  
  

• ForArea D>, I just made a new toolbar (which is empty) and shrunk it down as much as possible, just to function as a spacer.
  
• ForArea F>, right-click on the taskbar, go to Toolbars, New Toolbar, and you’ll need to right-click on the folder called ‘Special’ and rename it to TWO BLANK CHARACTERS (ALT + 0160. Or copy this: > ?<), before selecting it. Once you’ve created the toolbar, drag it to the far right of the taskbar - then right-click on an empty space and TICK “Show title” – then resize it until only the arrow shows.
  

And then you’re done! Right click on an empty area of your taskbar when you’re happy with the layout and click on “Lock the Taskbar”.

<Optional extras:b>

1. 
   to display the day and date (and to look nicer) – optional, of course. I use Clock Tray Skins by

Drive Software. I have a full version, but I know there used to be a free ‘lite’ version for download. I found a copy still available on softpedia (linky). I’m using the Technics skin.
Taskix trearrange open applicationsb>, AND to close with a middle click! Very handy, and free! A tiny app. A must have for any XP nut.= Rainlendar, with Tangoish skin.= Rainmeter, with a custom mod of moxaweather with tango icons added.: Turbo Tango Patcher by vertigosity (linky), Tangerine style selected. – right click on the start menu category you want (e.g. Accessories, Games, Utilities, etc. and select Properties. Click on Customise, then Change Icon.: I use SysTrayX - the interface looks like some crappy old Win98 app, but it works well and does the job! There might be better apps out there that do this, but this is what I use anyway. LINK: I use VisualTaskTips (linky), which is free for personal use!:D:D: LinkyFindexer, @ tomseffect.com

<Another optional extra:b>

If you're feeling adventurous, you can make your open applications look like little buttons with icons, which kinda looks interesting (but something I decided not to use on a daily basis):

To get your open apps like this, use the following: LINKY

After extracting, it will be clear what you need to do. This process is completely reversible, and I have done this numerous times myself. If using this option, VisualTaskTips comes in quite handy for distinguishing programs!

That’s about it folks! I know it’s a bit long winded for something reasonably simple, but I thought it would prevent simple questions being asked. So there you go. Happy XPing!:D:D

Edited September 4, 2009 by dewaaz

[Sikh]

Thanks man! Finally. Adding the image was even a better idea because now I know what I did wrong at the first time doing this.

Thank you very much!

[-KJ]

Looks awesome, but this can only be done in XP?

[Pam14160]

dewaaz,

Some good looking stuff. Will be attempting this sometime later today in Windows 7 Virtual PC XPM (XP Mode).

Thanks, and again looks great. :fun:

[red.]

Very nice guide! I'm going to have to try some of the things.

[Syanide]

That looks like KDE 3.5. With Gnome Icons. :D

Nice work, though (Y).

[Unconnected]

Awesome guide thanks... this almost makes me wanna dump ugly 7 and use xp :p

[morphen]

nice guide, but; why not use linux if you like it so much;) hehe

[dis]

3.

no need an external app to hide the start menu if you use negative margins in the visualstyle. in example:

[start::Button]

ContentMargins = -120, x, x, x

...the correct value depends on your start button image size.

[Unconnected]

It's the master of reshacking =O

[crosenblum]

Is there anything that can make the taskbar look more like gnome, kde, or other linux flavors?

[null_]

Wow, nice work! :)

[Syanide]

Is there anything that can make the taskbar look more like gnome, kde, or other linux flavors?

I'm pretty sure KDE is available for Windows.

Here, check this..

[threesixtyflip]

Is there any reason why it all resets itself back to default when I restart my PC?

Otherwise good guide!

[dewaaz]

3.

no need an external app to hide the start menu if you use negative margins in the visualstyle. in example:

[start::Button]

ContentMargins = -120, x, x, x

...the correct value depends on your start button image size.

thanks for that... quite true, but doing so would require each visual style to be modified. For me, Start Killer uses minimal RAM, and allows for me to change visual styles whenever I want without having to modify everything! Quicker + easier = win (for me, at least).

Is there any reason why it all resets itself back to default when I restart my PC?

Otherwise good guide!

I used to have a couple of problems with toolbars not maintaining their size intially - but this was because of a BSOD I'd occasionally get from a crappy driver, freezing things and requiring me to push the restart button.

Try getting everything the way you like it, then do a proper shutdown manually. Once you've done a proper shutdown, things should stay the way they are - at least that worked for me...

[crosenblum]

I'm pretty sure KDE is available for Windows.

Here, check this..

What does that actually do, i read the documentation, and i am not sure how it works?

Does it just retheme/shell the window's interface?

[bluewind.]

Thanks very much for the guide. I really like your setup but have a question,

When you say rename the toolbar name with a single space what exactly do you mean? I tried renaming it by hitting the spacebar but it gets renamed back to the original name.

Also, I'm having trouble with resizing the toolbars. For example, on Area A (farleft) I can only size it down so much but it still shows the full icon (small size) plus part of the text (shortcut to ....). Same problem with Area F.

[Jamushroom Veteran]

Try ALT + 0160 for a single space as a name.

For A: unclock the taskbar and right click the gripper for the toolbar. You'll see an option which says "Show text", this should be disabled. When the text has been disabled, you'll be able to resize the toolbar as shown in the screenshot :)

[bluewind.]

Try ALT + 0160 for a single space as a name.

For A: unclock the taskbar and right click the gripper for the toolbar. You'll see an option which says "Show text", this should be disabled. When the text has been disabled, you'll be able to resize the toolbar as shown in the screenshot :)

Thanks for the tip.

[spikey_richie]

Looks awesome, but this can only be done in XP?

entered in error... ignore me :p