Monday, September 14, 2009

How to add Quick Launch to Windows 7

1. First, open Explorer and go to Tools | Folder Options | View tab. Scroll down and make sure the option to Show hidden files, folders and drives is selected.
2. Now right click an empty space on the taskbar and select Toolbars | New Toolbar
3. Browse to this folder: C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer (Note that AppData is a hidden folder and you won’t see it in the folder if you don’t have Explorer set to show hidden files, folders and drives.
4. Highlight the Quick Launch folder and click the Select Folder button.

This adds a Quick Launch toolbar to the Windows 7 taskbar. Unlock the taskbar if you haven’t already (right click and uncheck Lock the Taskbar). Now you can drag it to make it the size you want, and you can drag additional programs to it.

To get rid of the Title and Text, right click the Quick Launch toolbar and uncheck Show Text and Show Title. If you want the icons bigger, select View and Large Icons.

The advantage to having the Quick Launch bar back is that you can put the programs there that you use less often (but still want them one click away) and use small icons, giving you much more space than if you pinned all of them to the main taskbar.