Working with Taskbar and Start Menu Properties

You can change following settings under Taskbar and Start Menu Properties,

• Maintain appearance of Taskbar.
• Appearance of Notification area.
• Start menu style.
• Icon size.
• Number of programs in Start Menu.
• General Start Menu settings and
• Recent documents.

Use Alt+Enter combination or right click on Taskbar to open Taskbar and Start Menu Properties

Maintain appearance of Taskbar: Under Taskbar appearance; "Lock the taskbar"; If checked, hides all sizing handles on the taskbar; stops you from resizing taskbar. Gain more screen space? Make taskbar automatically hide when it is not being used, check "Auto-hide the taskbar". You can keep the taskbar always visible, even when you run a program in full screen by checking "Keep the taskbar on top of other windows". You can group together multiple items into single button opened from the same program by checking "Group similar taskbar buttons". Check "Show Quick Lunch", a customizable toolbar known as Quick Lunch will appear right to the Start Menu.

Appearance of Notification area: Under Notification area; check/uncheck "Show the clock" to show or hide system clock. Use "Hide inactive icons" option to stop inactive program's icon from being displayed in system tray (left to system clock).

Start menu style: Switch between default Windows XP Start Menu or old or Classic Windows Menu. Further settings from this point depends on the selection. If you are selecting "Start menu" i.e default Windows XP Start Menu; go to the next paragraph else Click Here.

Default Windows XP Start menu settings

Select icon size under "Select an icon size for programs" and number of most frequently used programs being displayed in Start Menu under "Programs", minimum 0 and maximum 30. Click Clear List to clear current most frequently programs from Start Menu. Under "Show on Start menu"; check Internetand/or E-mail and select default browser and Email program (respectively) from the list to appear it on the top in Start menu.

This step is very simple, change the way submenu opens and highlight newly installed programs, as well as show or hide items of start menu under "Start menu items". Check "List my most recently opened documents" to display My Recent Documents menu in Start Menu, click Clear List to clear My Recent Documents menu items.

Classic Start menu settings

Click Add to add new Start Menu program icon and Remove to remove. Click Advance to manage Start Menu programs if you are smart enough. Sort command will sort Start Menu items alphabetically whileClear clears the My Recent Documents items. Hide/Show common items under "Advanced Start menu options".