[Update: The May 2nd 2014 beta release of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker has a fix for Windows 8.1 update. Yay! Also I am now using classic shell in combination with 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.]
[Update: April 20th 2014 Windows 8.1 update has temporarily broken this :( Apparently a new fix is in the works.]
I recently acquired a new laptop with Windows 8.1 on it. I like to dock my task-bar on the left edge of my screen and like it as thin as possible. There are specific reason for this choice:
[Update: April 20th 2014 Windows 8.1 update has temporarily broken this :( Apparently a new fix is in the works.]
I recently acquired a new laptop with Windows 8.1 on it. I like to dock my task-bar on the left edge of my screen and like it as thin as possible. There are specific reason for this choice:
- Vertical task-bar because widescreen monitors means plenty of horizontal space but relatively less vertical screen real estate
- Task-bar docked to left edge because that way the task bar does not interfere with vertical scroll-bar interaction on the right side of maximized windows - when the auto hide task-bar is turned on.
I had blogged about how to get a thin vertical task-bar on Windows 7 here. Unfortunately that does not work on Windows 8 or 8.1. The task-bar stays 2 icon wide. Bummer.
After a little bit of search I found this excellent utility - 7+ Taskbar Tweaker. This has a set of Advanced options (right-click the 7+ Taskbar Tweaker's system tray icon, select Advanced Options) to remove the minimum width limit on the vertical task-bar.
How to configure it ?
- Install 7+ Taskbar Tweaker and run it. You can close the dialog that is displayed.
- Make sure to dock the task-bar to the left edge
- Make sure that it is not locked
- Make sure that you have selected Use small icons option in the task-bar properties
- In the 7+ Taskbar Tweaker Advanced options (right-click the 7+ Taskbar Tweaker's system tray icon, select Advanced Options) just set the value of no_width_limit to 1 and click OK.
(other options have been removed from the screenshot for focus)
- Then drag the right edge of the task-bar to make it 1 icon thick
If you do not configure the 7+ Taskbar Tweaker to run at startup, after reboot the task-bar will become 2 icon thick again. Simply run the 7+ Taskbar Tweaker and the 1 icon wide task-bar will be restored. After this you may even exit the 7+ Taskbar Tweaker tray icon.
3 comments:
Thanks for this info Sandip! I've been wanting to do this for along time!
Thanks so much! It works on Windows 10 pretty well since the software has a beta version now that works on Windows 10.
tknxs so much...!!!!
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