Get your Quick Launch bar back under Windows 10, 8, & 7

[Update] This still works on Windows 10 and Windows 8.

Windows 7 supposedly improves the user interface, but in my experience it’s MUCH WORSE than Vista’s UI.  One of the things that really sux is that there’s no longer a Quick Launch bar on the task bar.  Microsoft claims that the new “super bar” has all the Quick Launch bar features already built in.  This is not true.  Read this post to see why:

It’s actually not totally gone.  Here’s how to get it back:

  1. Unlock the taskbar (if it’s locked): Right-click an empty area on the task bar and uncheck “Lock the taskbar” if it’s checked.
  2. Right click the task bar (or the “SuperBar”), choose “Toolbars”, then “New Toolbar…”
  3. In the “Folder:” field, enter “%appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch” (without the quotes, of course):imageand click “Select Folder”.  You’ll see this on the right side of the task bar, just to the left of the system tray (now called the “notification area”):  image
  4. You have your Quick Launch bar back, but you still need to fiddle with it to get it looking like it did before.  First, grab the dotted area to the left of the “Q” in “Quick Launch” and drag the bar to where you want it on your task bar.
  5. Next, you’ll need to change the text and icon sizes to your preferences.  The default for XP and Vista was no text and small icons.  To do that, right-click your new Quick Launch bar and uncheck “Show Text”.
  6. You’ll probably want to get rid of the rather large “Quick Launch” label as well.  Right click a blank area on the Quick Launch bar and uncheck “Show title”.

Your right-click (or “context”) menu should now look like this: image

Your Quick Launch bar is now complete and should look something like this:

image

You can now drag program icons into it just as you did before.  You can now launch as many instances as you need by clicking once for each instance.  You’ll now get a separate button on the task bar (outside of the quick launch area) for each instance.  You’ll now be able to clearly tell which icons are launch icons and which ones are running icons.

Now, just rearrange your Quick Launch icons to your liking and you’re back in business!

You’re welcome!

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