BleepingComputer.com: problem viewing bar across btm of windows

Hi all Long time away . I seem to have a problem with the bar across the bottom of windows ,I,m never sure what its called /Taskbar /Toolbar/ etc, etc.

But it is the space between the quick launch side and the right hand bottom toolbar"

Where the web pages and other open programs icons appear when open ..At the Moment I can only view them in a small box with just a letter in them IE for Bleeping computers web site it shows just a "B", for email it shows just a "E"" and so on ..if yu follow my meaning ..

The worst part is ,If I open a series of browser windows they all stack on top of one another ,very hard to work out whats open and whats not

anyway Guys I hope I have explained my prob properly as It has been driving me mad for agaes ,

Thanks all Old Aussie  ScreenHunter_01_Jul._09_11.17.gif (9.12K)
Number of downloads: 26

This post has been edited by oldaussie: 08 July 2009 - 10:35 PM

Well it looks like people in here are as dumb as me ..No one Has even the slightest idea how to fix this problem ..

Have to look elsewhere ..

Might be a dumb idea, but how about moving your task bar separator over to the right to give the tabs more space.

Thanks for that animal ,yes I tried that .I have searched elsewhere and it seems to stump everyone .. annoying tho..

any ideas are worth a try ..

Thanks All for your help ..Cheers Old A..

I know how to make that happen on purpose (self inflicted) and can recreate your situation.

It involves a registry modification and we can't talk about that here but I don't think I will get yelled at for pointing.

Here is a link that talks about all kinds of related things:

http://www.virtualplastic.net/html/desk_reg.html

The parameter of interest is the MinWidth parameter which is a per user setting. Modifying it requires a logon cycle to take effect.

If I set mine to -270, my display looks similar to yours. An icon, a letter and a maybe a dot or two.

I read elsewhere that -285 is supposed to just show the icon with no text, but it always display at least the first character and I don't feel like experimenting too much anymore.

If you have MinWidth and don't know why, someone must have added it.

If you find it, what is your value and how do you think it got added/that way?

If MinWidth exists and you don't like it, just delete the MinWidth value entirely to get back to normal. I think -2310 is the default if you are compelled to have it.

I would just delete it and you can add it back later if you miss it.

This post has been edited by joseibarra: 14 July 2009 - 11:59 AM

Thanks for that Josie , looks very daunting ,but I,ll go thru it and let you know the result ..

The documentation is a reference that includes way too much information, but I think of special interest to you is this section:

MinWidth -2310
Size of items in taskswitch area of taskbar. One pixel equals 15, again. If you set it somewhere around -300 (experiment, depends on taskbar/captionbar height), you can have only icons displayed there...

I am guilty of providing too much information!

Kellys-Korner is another popular site for download XP tweaks but my problem with so many of them is there is no explanation about anything - it is just download and run (try) this.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm Look at #97. It says "Undo", but it is really a "Do", so already I have a problem with it.

This is a VB Script (tweak) to download and run that sets the value to -285 which as I mentioned is supposed to just show the icon, but -285 always leaves me at least the first character of text and sometimes a dot or two.

I don't like to just "try things" - I want to know that the devil is going on. What does it do? What if I don't like it?

Could it be that somehow that little script was run on your system in the past?

If I was sitting in front of you computer, I would just take a look at the WindowMetrics part of the registry and see what's up and do something about it if needed - whack it and see what things look like. At least when you get done, you will know more than when you started.

Some folks are not comfortable with the registry, so if that is you, then try to find somebody that is.

Remember - there is no "undo" or "quit without saving" in regedit!