Windows 7: Where’s My Sidebar?

I’ve recently hopped aboard the Windows 7 train, using Microsoft’s latest OS on a new PC build. Right away I found that the day I’ve long feared has arrived: Microsoft has removed all features allowing for a toolbar you can dock to the side of your screen.

I hate the start menu. It takes 3 clicks (on average) to launch any application. To say nothing of the time you spend scrolling or searching your start menu for the thing you want to launch. The desktop is better, but everybody knows the mess you can cause by stashing shortcuts there (though that doesn’t stop most people).

Fortunately, ever since the start menu has been around, there’s been an alternative from Microsoft. Office 97 introduced the Office Shortcut Bar…and it was great. Shortcuts docked down the side of your screen: fast and efficient to use, and allowed shortcuts to be organized. Of course, Office Shortcut Bar wasn’t perfect, despite its usability. Chief amongst the complaints: it was a resource hog, especially considering it just held your shortcuts. And Microsoft went about killing it, first by not installing it by default with Office XP, then dropping it from Office 2003.

But all was not lost. Windows now had the Quick Launch toolbar, which could be dragged away from the task bar to be used just like the Office Shortcut Bar. Except Microsoft would shut this down as well by keeping Quick Launch stuck to the task bar in Vista. There were still built in alternatives. A folder of shortcuts could be docked to the edge of the screen, an undocumented feature. But there was also the Vista Sidebar. To me, this was one of the better features of Vista: now you can have shortcuts via a launcher gadget along with other gadgets. I felt sure this was the permanent replacement, so I have used Sidebar happily in Vista.

Which brings me to my point: Microsoft has defeated me with Windows 7. No more Office Sidebar, you still cannot move toolbars away from the taskbar, you can no longer dock folders, AND Sidebar was removed, replaced by free floating gadgets. Sure you can have your launcher gadget, but it’s going to live on your desktop. Unless you want it on TOP of your other windows, occupying the same space rather than its own. A feature whose novelty is lost on me, somehow.

What does Microsoft have against a docking toolbar??? Now you have to look to third parties for support. Some have “installed” the Vista Sidebar on Windows 7. I’m currently using this gadget, which tries to reproduce the sidebar, but is far from perfect. There are stand alone applications, but none that have excited me so far.

Do you know of a good tool to create a shortcut toolbar? If so, let me know in comments.

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http://www.nathanhunstad.com Doctor Gonzo
Since you can both pin applications to the taskbar, and hit the Windows key and start typing the name of the app to bring it up without navigating through the Start menu, what’s the need for a space-wasting toolbar?
Just pin those apps to the taskbar and order them however you want.

David Kennedy
With widescreen monitors, there’s plenty of extra space that the majority of applications do not take advantage of.
Pinning is definitely useful, but it’s hardly a replacement for sidebar. I could write a whole other article on it, but I prefer to use my taskbar as…a TASK bar. I.e., frequently throughout the day, I will have several tasks going on at once. I may have between 1-4 applications running to accomplish a given task. It’s extremely inefficient to have to wade through the other tasks because my tasks are grouped by application.
Besides which, toolbar/sidebar is an optional feature. If you don’t want to use it, don’t, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful to someone else.

http://www.virtualpreacher.org Yohan Perera
I have never used a side bar, but I wanted to share something about having to do 3 mouse click in Windows 7 to launch a particular programme.
I am still sticking to XP, because I find it less confusing that Vista and 7. For instance troubleshooting internet and network connections is much easier in XP…
David M
Don’t worry, Microsoft comes out with a new version of Windows every three years or so whether or not it is necessary so they can sell more software. Its the same mentality Detroit used to have. They will probably return the side bar then.
Can anyone explain the reasoning behind eliminating something versus giving you the option to show it or to hide it?

David Kennedy
You’re probably right. They’ll give sidebar a new name and a new GUI in the next version and call it a “revolutionary” enhancement.

Alex F
The Microsoft Sidebar was a memory hog. Over 2/3 of the users of Vista hated that thing. Cause nothing but grief, good riddance. If you really want a sidebar, all you have to do is Google for it. Windows 7 is built on Vista, so I’m sure it’s compatible.

David Kennedy
Over 2/3, huh? Where’d you get that number? You can google, there are plenty of users looking for a sidebar or toolbar replacement.
Good riddance? You do realize, all you had to do in Vista was turn it off if it bothered you.
Yes, I have seen a few solutions involving copying dlls from Vista to make sidebar work in 7. I don’t personally think that’s the greatest idea, however.

Casey
Not really a start menu per-say, but if you’re a keyboard junkie like me there’s no program like launchy. Hit your key combination, type what you want, hit enter, and you’ve got it. It’s basically what gnome-do is to linux, and quicksilver is to mac. It’s completely eradicated the need for me to ever use the start menu.
As for sidebars, both google and yahoo have decent apps you can use.
G W Baisley
Check out the Dell Dock, http://www.delldock.com/. This product is from Stardock,
http://www.stardock.com/products/delldockflyer/. I am using this with WIN 7 professionsl and ultimate, both 32 bit and 64 bit.; on one desktop and six laptops. It is very functional and organizes things nicely. It will also work with Vista and XP.
Seborreia
Yes, definitely the Dell Dock is a good option, I have been using it with Windows 7 Home and it definitely has been a blessing.
It came with my laptop, I support it 100%.
Alexander Schmidt
I had the same problem organizing my 20 most used apps in an quickly reachable manner. A shame on microsoft for removing the option to pin a folder at the edge of the desktop.
As an replacement i just installed the DellDock and what i can say at the first glance it works really good.