I could not live without this hack. Placing the Windows taskbar on the lefthand side, with auto-hide on, gives you more screen real estate AND more taskbar width when it pops out when needed, via Ctrl-Esc. I’ve been configuring Windows this way for decades. How can people stand that little strip at the bottom flashing at them all day? Seems like a little thing… but to me it’s huge. It actually determines who’s in charge – am I sitting at my computer to be told what I should do via little popup notifications, or am I there to get something done, checking on any notifications when I’m ready to address them? Sure, my friends can get annoyed that I take an hour to respond to an instant message, but I’m getting stuff done. Anyway, I’ve gotta keep this thing handy… (or just resist the urge to boot into Windows to play games…) :>
UPDATE: the original hack hasn’t kept pace with Explorer updates, and hasn’t been open sourced so others can do it. On page 17 of that forum post, another hack was provided that seems to be working.
Thanks for the great info dog I owe you bggiity.
[…] a little background… On XP, I keep my taskbar hidden unless I want to see it. I’ve ranted about this before, it’s a pretty fundamental concept that it should be ME who decides how my computer […]