Changing the Windows 7 Taskbar to XP/Vista Style
To revert back to the older style, the first thing you'll need to do is
right-click on any open area of the taskbar and choose Properties from the menu.
From the Taskbar buttons drop-down menu, you'll want to choose “Never combine”,
which will make every window show up as a separate button on the taskbar, or you
could choose “Combine when taskbar is full”, which does just like it says.
Now you should see the buttons show up with text labels like you are probably
used to… but in the Windows 7 style.
If you chose the “Use small icons” checkbox in the properties screen, the
taskbar will actually shrink down to look very similar to Vista.
The only problem is that the “pinned” icons are still sitting on the taskbar,
which isn't the same as Vista or XP, but you can easily remove all of them by
right-clicking and choosing “Unpin this program from taskbar”.
And now the taskbar looks and works very similarly to Windows Vista:
If you wanted to be really silly, you can choose the “Windows Classic” theme
under the Desktop \ Personalize section… but that would be taking it a little
too far, I think.
I strongly urge you to at least give the new Windows 7 taskbar a try… it takes a
little getting used to, but it's really a nice move forward. Does the new “dock
style” taskbar work for you? Tell us in the comments.
| More This article was originally written on 01/20/09
" Tried it and it works!" I love good old Xp. 7 is ok but this is the fix I was looking for. Now 7 works or doesn't work how ever you look at it just the way I wanted it to.
To revert back to the older style, the first thing you'll need to do is
right-click on any open area of the taskbar and choose Properties from the menu.
From the Taskbar buttons drop-down menu, you'll want to choose “Never combine”,
which will make every window show up as a separate button on the taskbar, or you
could choose “Combine when taskbar is full”, which does just like it says.
Now you should see the buttons show up with text labels like you are probably
used to… but in the Windows 7 style.
If you chose the “Use small icons” checkbox in the properties screen, the
taskbar will actually shrink down to look very similar to Vista.
The only problem is that the “pinned” icons are still sitting on the taskbar,
which isn't the same as Vista or XP, but you can easily remove all of them by
right-clicking and choosing “Unpin this program from taskbar”.
And now the taskbar looks and works very similarly to Windows Vista:
If you wanted to be really silly, you can choose the “Windows Classic” theme
under the Desktop \ Personalize section… but that would be taking it a little
too far, I think.
I strongly urge you to at least give the new Windows 7 taskbar a try… it takes a
little getting used to, but it's really a nice move forward. Does the new “dock
style” taskbar work for you? Tell us in the comments.
| More This article was originally written on 01/20/09
" Tried it and it works!" I love good old Xp. 7 is ok but this is the fix I was looking for. Now 7 works or doesn't work how ever you look at it just the way I wanted it to.
Xp is fine for this.
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