One really useful feature of Windows which I notice a lot of people do not take advantage of is the Quick Launch bar. This is the area in your taskbar which has the icons you can use to open programs.
For many people I can see why they would not use it because between the programs they have open on the taskbar and the system tray, there really isn’t too much available room. However, if you increase the size of your taskbar you will find it becomes much more feasible.
I have my taskbar set to 3 levels high and have 15 shortcuts in my Quick Launch. This saves me both time in not having to go to the start menu for programs and desktop space for not having to keep shortcuts there.
Jason Faulkner is the man who brings you our daily tips. He is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
I have 3 icons in my Quick Launch toolbar, but they are followed by a double arrow, which when clicked, displays another 15 or so icons I can quick launch. I don’t remember how I got that very convenient arrangement, but it is much better than increasing the size of the taskbar, which reduces the room for the windows you want to display.
In addition to the quick launch bar, of which I am a fan and have been for a while, I use the six programmable buttons on my trackball (much to the chagrin of Rich aka Not Dave) to launch applications and frequently visited websites like PCMECH.
I use quick launch extensively and have many, many, shortcuts and folders in a regular-sized taskbar. I add these items directly into the “C:\Documents and Settings\your name\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch” folder.
Michael,
If you auto hide the quick launch toolbar you don’t lose windows display area until you hover over the bottom of the screen to display the toolbar so you can launch another program. I have three lines of twelve icons visible and five more icons behind the double arrow menu. If you hover over the double dots next to the double arrows you can drag the bar to increase or decrease the size of the icon display area to suit your needs. The more you have visible, the fewer clicks you need. You can also arrange the icons in order of importance by draging them to the order you want. It sure allows you to clean up the desktop too.
Try it. I think you will like it.
Since winXp i use quick launch toolbar with 20 icons but not on start bar. I pull out the quick bar with mouse to top or one sides of desktop, that’s means i create a new bar on desktop like ubuntu linux. This way you have two bars with no increase stress to you system performance.
I bet you don’t now this