How to make the Windows 7 Taskbar thin when on the side

[Meoiswa]

@Lorto7:

Yes, sadly, it depends on a bug that triggers only when the desktop composition service restarts.

[Lorto7]

This is GREAT! The taskbar-on-the-side-thiness problem was my last major issue with Windows 7! There is just one hickup with this solution... it only works if you are running an Aero Theme.... seems, at least for now, one can have classic theme enabled with a thick side taskbar, or a classically thin side taskbar without the classic look, but not both.

[Meoiswa]

Are you using the taskbar on the side of the screen? Do you have desktop composition (AKA transparent graphics) enabled? those two are requirements for it to work, IRC.

[TheRobistop]

@Meoiswa Sidebar is on the left side of the screen. And usally i dont have transparent graphics enabled but i switched to the default "windows theme" for this and it still the .exe does nothing (without switching autohide on/off) :(

exe is running in root mode - any other idea :/ ?

[TheRobistop]

Hi, I have Windows7 HomePrem 64bit and the .exe and the .bat do not work: They activate autohide (i usally dont use it, so i know the script is running), but the elements does not get smaller :(

any idea?

[aznrex14]

I always wondered how to get the skinny bar permanent.

Great job and thanks! :)

[alienmode]

THANK YOU SO MUCH~!!!

[anseio]

I'm going to post a thread about this on notebookreview and hope it gains you more attention.

[anseio]

Another interesting thing. I'm using a Solid State Drive, so it multitasks really well. Having the .bat in the startup folder was causing it to run before bootup was even close to finishing, causing it to not work. Instead, I created a task in Task Schedule to run the .bat w/ the highest privilege at startup and to delay for 11 seconds after boot. Works great.

[Meoiswa]

@anseio Thats clever, I never thought the system would run startup items before explorer was up and running entirelly.

[anseio]

@Meoiswa Thanks! With HDD's, you're right. Things are loaded fairly sequentially. With SSD's, everything pretty much happens all at once. So, the startup link can be run before the welcome screen even disappears, which was the case for me. The delayed task has been working perfectly. I've noticed that a recent Windows update has slowed my boot times, so I just changed the task from 15 to 20 seconds.

[anseio]

Ok, it took me a while to get v2 running correctly.

I made a shortcut of autohide -off and dropped it into my AppData...Startup, but it wouldn't restart DWM. Right clicked the shortcut > properties > advanced > run as admin, solved that problem

Still couldn't get it to execute toggleTaskBarAutoHide, so I opened a command prompt and saw that it defaults to %Windows\System32. I dropped toggleTaskBarAutoHide.exe into there now it works perfectly.

[anseio]

You are an effing GENIUS!!!

I've been wanting this solution for over a year now.

[Karanoka]

Thanks for this, works like a charm! But any idea how to make the Orb smaller too?

[vipstjert]

Very nice trick! It work manually, but I get the message 'Access denied' in the little black window, when trying to run the bat-file, and the of course the bat file does not do the trick. Do any of you know how to make this work?

[vipstjert]

@vipstjert I think I made it work now, run as administrator.

[Meoiswa]

@vipstjert Your problem, has you already figured, is that the bat file must run has administrator since it will tinker with services run with administrator privileges by windows.

[Meoiswa]

@vipstjert Try creating a shortcut to the program and in its propertires, click on the checkmark to run as administrator. As suggested by @anseio:

I made a shortcut of autohide -off and dropped it into my AppData...Startup, but it wouldn't restart DWM. Right clicked the shortcut > properties > advanced > run as admin, solved that problem

[vwabi]

This is great, thanks a lot. I personally ran into a problem, the fact that the command window came up and dissapeared, and nothing happened.

If this happens to anyone, it might be because you're not running the batch file as an administator. Simply make a shortcut to the file and go to advanced properties and select "run as administrator"

Then simply put that shortcut in the Startup folder, and the batch file anywhere else.

[Meoiswa]

@vwabi Thanks a lot for providing this information

[aspaaace]

@vwabi I'm still encountering this issue - I've tried the shortcut in "run as administrator" mode while logged in both standard and admin accounts, but neither will work at startup - I'm forced to track down the file and run it manually each time. It's still a nice utility, but if anyone has more tips on making it run every time at startup, it'd be a godsend.

[vwabi]

@aspaaace Well, try normally clicking the shortcut. Does a window come up asking for confirmation? If so, that's the UAC, and for some reason it makes it so that startup programs don't work. (at least for me). I just put the shortcut on my desktop and click it everytime I startup. I know it's annoying, but it's the only way I found to fix it, apart from disabling UAC (which I really don't reccommend)

[Meoiswa]

@aspaaace Another user solved his issue of the program running before the explorer was up (and thus doing nothing) by creating a scheduled event about 10 seconds after startup.

[Hexthevex]

YES!



[Tystuh]

omfg thanks, ive been looking for this for like 10 years

[Meoiswa]

@Tystuh You're welcome :)

[Meoiswa]

@Xylber Thank you for your colaboration! Your method is certainly faster than mine, however killing explorer is kinda more intrusive. I noticed you set the taskbar to be on the right side with your bat, which is kind of interesting. There must be a method to make explorer refresh the taskbar state without actually killing it! If we find that, and combine it with your bat, we might be able to achieve the final objective!

[Xylber]

I wonder how weird it sounds when I wrote: "with a bat you can..." xD

[Xylber]

@Meoiswa I think it's impossible. You need to restart explorer.exe for apply the autohide feature. So, with a bat you can: set autohide ON, restart explorer.exe (apply changes), stop and restart service, and done. If you try to set autohide OFF and restart again explorer.exe, you lose your changes.

My bay is on Mediafire: /?qjnps8l92xyndr9

[MeddyVid]

Thank you, I was looking for it all day!

[Meoiswa]

You would need to add to that batch file a way to automatically set autohide to ON before restarting the service, and then OFF after it comes up. taskbar without autohide ON wont get thin with this trick.

[mateors]

Hey this is great!

I prefer to have the taskbar always visible but I have observed that your batch file keeps the bar in "autohide".

I was wondering if there is a way to have a batch file to make a "thin taskbar" but always visible.

Thank you

[Meoiswa]

@mateors This has been resolved in the newer version

[thevoodoochild13]

really great solution to the porblem! lets hope it actually gets fixed in SP1...