In this Part 3 of my Windows 7 tutorial, I’ll begin a Taskbar walk about.

In this Part 3 of my Windows 7 tutorial, I’ll begin a Taskbar walk about.

At first glance your Windows 7 Taskbar may seem the same as Vista’s Taskbar and about the same as XP’s Taskbar. But after my Taskbar walk abouts I believe you’ll agree with me that Windows 7's Taskbar is far superior to either Vista’s or XP’s Taskbar.

By default your Taskbar will be located at the bottom of the Desktop. However, if by chance your Taskbar is not visible there are several possible reasons why:
1. The taskbar is unlocked and has been resized so that it’s hard to see.
2. Auto-hide is turned on. If this is the case, you’ll only see the taskbar when you point to where the taskbar is positioned on your Desktop.
3. If you’re using multiple monitors, the taskbar will only appear on one monitor.

To resize a missing Taskbar point to the area where your taskbar should be. When the pointer changes into a vertical double-headed arrow hold down you left mouse button and drag the border toward the desktop.

Note: To avoid accidentally resizing the taskbar, right-click the taskbar and click Lock the Taskbar.

To find the taskbar if auto-hide is on, point to where you last saw the taskbar. If you can’t remember try pointing to the bottom of the screen first and then if necessary, to the sides or top of the screen. You might need to move your pointer almost off the screen to find the taskbar.

To turn off auto-hide, right click on your Start globe, left click on Properties and Taskbar. Clear the ‘Auto-hide the taskbar’ check box and then click OK.

While you’re at your Taskbar properties note how much more easy it is to expeditiously relocate your Taskbar to the top, left, and right of you Desktop.

You also have three Taskbar button choices: ‘Always combine, hide Labels’, ‘Combine when the taskbar is full’, and ‘Never combine’.

Try out each option. However, I suggest ‘Always combine, hide labels’ is your best option if you regularly open many programs and prefer your taskbar icons to be full sized. If you select ‘Combine when taskbar is full’ and regularly open many programs, I suggest you check the ‘Use small icons’ checkbox under Taskbar appearance.

Next week I’ll continue my Taskbar walk about to include and in depth look at the new and improved Notification area and a peek at the new Windows 7 Areo Peek feature.

Here’s wishing you a Good Boot.