This is one of my all-time favorite Windows tips, and it’s one of the first customizations I make on a new computer.
After you open more than three or four programs, you’ll have trouble seeing which file or program goes with each taskbar button. Here’s a great solution: increase the height of the taskbar to two lines (or even three), so you can see more buttons. Aim the mouse pointer at the top edge of the taskbar until it turns to a two-headed arrow, then drag up to create an extra row. If your screen resolution is 1024 X 768, you have room for at least two rows; at higher resolutions, you can comfortably use three rows.
After you finish this tweak, you’ll be able to see more taskbar buttons and their text labels. You’ll also find that the small icons in the Quick Launch bar and the system notification area (the “tray” at the right of the taskbar) stack up as well, giving you a lot more room in these areas, too. Even the clock changes appearance. With a two-line taskbar, you see today’s day and date along with the current time.
You may need to unlock the taskbar before you can make any changes. To do so, right-click the system clock and clear the check mark next to Lock the Taskbar). You may also need to “unhide” the Quick Launch bar (right-click any empty space on the taskbar, click the Toolbars menu, and select the Quick Launch option). Drag the right edge of the Quick Launch bar to make it wide enough to hold your icons. Remember to lock the taskbar after you finish.
Ed Bott 
I have had my taskbar double-stacked for years. (I now have it triple-stacked.). I personally love it.
But one annoyance (in XP anyway) is in setting up the toolbars. In Windows 2K, I got used to having the running programs take up a row on the Taskbar, the Quick Launch take a row by itself, and any other bars (e.g., Address bar, Dave’s Quick Search bar, etc.), take up the 3rd row. In XP, I find that it’s practically impossible to convince a bar that it only needs a third of the height. This is especially annoying for the likes of the Address bar, which doesn’t need the extra height.
So what I end up having to do is (1) change my theme to Windows Classic, (2), set up the Taskbar, and then (3) revert back to the XP theme I was using.
Also, I take advantage whenever I can of using any “Minimize to Tray” options that app might offer. In addition, I have started using a “PowerMenu” utility, which allows one to minimize programs to the Notification Area, instead of to the taskbar. This is handy for those programs which have one instance open for long periods of time and which you can easiy identify by the icon only.
My variation on Ed’s Tip. (For 1024×768 and above.)
Unlock the taskbar and increase its height until Quick Launch shows a blank area. Right click on the blank area and choose View> Large Icons. With that change, the taskbar will assume the height of a single Quick Launch icon. Increase taskbar height so that Quick Launch is two icons high (the task area will be three tasks high.) Arrange the Quick Launch Icons so that most frequently used icons are on the bottom row. Right click on the taskbar; choose properties and enable “Auto-hide the taskbar” and “Keep the taskbar on top of other windows.” Lock the taskbar.
Positives and negatives for this setup.
+ No screen space lost to applications.
+ Plenty of space to show running tasks.
+ Clock displays: Time, Day of week and mm/dd/yy.
+ Icons for your most frequently used Quick Lauch items are just large enough that you can hit them without hunting around with your mouse.
Because the taskbar is hidden, it may take a fraction of a second more time when using the mouse to switch between tasks.
The clock is hidden during normal operation.
Some poorly written programs don’t seem to respect the taskbar’s always on top flag. As a work around you can pop the taskbar to the front with a tap on the Windows key.
Great tip, especially on my work computer with the smaller screen. 🙂
In addition to making the taskbar larger and auto-hiding it, I’ve set mine up to be vertical along the right edge of the screen. This way, the programs’ buttons are much easier (for me) to scan through, especially with Windows XP’s program grouping feature (right-click taskbar, choose ‘Properties’, then select the ‘Group similar taskbar buttons’ checkbox).
Actually, I’m here because I’m trying to figure out how to get it back to one row only; I dragged it up to two rows, and it won’t go back to one. When I drag it back, it snaps to zero rows. Seems it’s all or nothing for me. 🙂
EB, that’s pretty odd. What happens if you drag it up to three rows? Have you tried locking and unlocking the toolbar? Any extra toolbars displayed on the taskbar?
Yep, I’ve tried all that. I’ve locked and unlocked the taskbar, I can do 0 rows, 2 rows, 3 rows, 4 rows, but not just one! 😀
There is something peculiar, though–the taskbar shows a gap between the separators (the thing composed of four dots, then three dots).
I’m attaching a to make it a bit clearer (if you allow images, that is.).
Ah, looks like no images. Here’s a direct link:
EB,
I’ve never seen that gap, and I suspect you’re right to zero in it. As a troubleshooting step, have you tried creating a new user account and experimenting with it? If you can create a one-line taskbar with a new clean account, that would indicate the problem is specific to the profile you’re using.
Can you drag the small (one-line) toolbar at the bottom left corner up? Can you right-click it and close it?
Thanks for the informative tips in this thread. I’m trying to find a way to get the clock to display just the time and not the day of week. Anyone know how to turn that off?
Ql tips, guys.
I have another problem… i dont know how to make the quick launch longer than 3 icons. I have a friend that did it and he forgot to tell me how he did it 😦
Tnx.
yo far out.
I got it, i got it.
I just had to think for a bit, lol.
Hey, EB, I had the same problem and it really pissed me off! I played with this for like an hour then I found the solution! Make sure the taskbar is unlocked. Now if it’s 2 rows high, you’ll notice the little bar between the start button and the first icon in the quicklaunch bar. And under that, on the first row, there’s another little bar (I know you pointed it with the red arrow in your pic, but the pic might not be online forever). Drag that little bar to the right of the last icon on the quicklaunch bar. Phew! That was hardly an obvious move!
Thanks Bob123456789,
I’ve been using computers forever and I couldn’t figure it
out to save my life!
Hi,
What I’d like to do is change the line height of quicklaunch, or the margin it uses around its icons, so that it, too, can be three lines high (like the notification area when taskbar is two lines high). Anyone know how to do this? I’ve been searching, haven’t found any way to do it….
— MDeck
I am now seeing the time and the day of the week where my time should be and that bothers me. How do I get the day of the week to go away and give all of that space to the time? This page is on my favorites now. Thx.
Bill, the width taken up by the time display dosn’t change. When you expand the toolbar to two rows you create extra room below the time, so Windows fills the space with the day and date. There’s no way that anything else could go under there, so you’re not losing anything.
Hello,
I’ve been able to do all the things I’ve always wanted to with the taskbar as far as sizing and icons, etc. The problem is that since I went from Windows 2000 to XP, the resizing of the taskbar never seems to stick from reboot to reboot. It always comes back as a single row. Then I have to pull it back to two rows or whatever. Under 2000, it would always remember where and what size it was. Now under XP it just remembers where but not how big. I’m running in multiple-monitor mode and keep the taskbar on the right most monitor at the top of the screen. Using “lock the toolbar” doesn’t help.
Help!
Thanks,
Matt Dralle
I have a user that has the QuickLaunch bar on the right hand side of the screen (still at the bottom of the screen – just to the left of where the time shows up). I can slide it to the right, but not all the way. It wants to put the open windows between it and the Start button. Is there any way to change that back?
I have my XP Quick Launch working the way I want. 2 rows of large shortucts (all across the top of the Taskbar).
But I can’t get the Taskbar (below the Quick Launch) height increased so I can have 2 rows for open pages
(I don’t like Grouping, etc.).
Of course I have the Taskbar unlocked, but I can only increase the height of the Quick Launch. Is it possible to add a second row to the Taskbar?
I used to have my taskbar 2 rows high but on my new PC XP has arrived. Setting the taskbar height to 2 rows and even locking this does not preserve the setting over a shutdown. Does anyone know where this is stored? Might have to do with my roaming profile?
Ed,
I’m having the “can’t get the taskbar back to one line high problem”. It’s unlocked, I selected small icons, and it’s either 2 rows or zero rows. I’m comfortable editing the registry (I do it all the time, and rarely break my install) – but I can’t find the setting or any documentation. Typical Microsoft – just grab the edge and drag it – but if that doesn’t work, what, reinstall Windows? If you have figured out the fix, would you please post it and email me a notification &/or the solution? Thanks. (Fully patched XP Pro, just did a repair/upgrade reinstall for other reasons, didn’t fix it.)
TASKBAR SOLUTION: How I solved the double height or nothing taskbar sizing problem (in XP Pro SP 2)::
1) I am not certain if this registry setting matters or not, but I think it is what allowed me to accomplish step 2), which I couldn’t get to work prior to changing the registry setting below. NOTE: Locking and unlocking the taskbar does not change this registry setting (at least on my machine).
Either just edit the registry entry shown, if you know how, or create a text file (using edit.com or some other pure ASCII text editor) called whateveryouwant.reg, containing the following text:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
“TaskbarSizeMove”=dword:00000001
(NOTE: everything between [ and ] is one line.)
Save the file (with the .reg filename extension), then double click on the filename, and answer yes if asked if you really want to add the info in the file to the registry.
2) Open an application, so that it puts an open app button on the bottom line of the taskbar (so you can more easily see what’s happening). Find the funny looking almost transparent vertical seperator just to the right AND BELOW the START button on the taskbar. Hover the mouse over it untill the double headed horizontal arrow [] appears; hold down the left mouse button and drag that vertical seperator to the left until the open app button pops up onto the top row – ipso bingo, the g@dd@*& taskbar is only one row high again. (This may not work unless you choose small icons in the taskbar properties context menu dialog, and probably also unless the taskbar is not locked.) No way am I going to reproduce the problem to see if the registry setting change is necessary – call me superstitious, but it took me months of off and on annoyance to figure this out. Hats off to all who like the double height, but I like it on top, and then Photoshop and many other apps put stuff behind the top half of the taskbar, so I can’t see it or click on the buttons, which doesn’t happen when it is single height. Praise the net and darn the (missing) documentation. Reminiscent of the joke about how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris against an invading force, “How many Microsoft employees does it take to document the user interface in Windows?” Answer: No one knows, it’s never been attempted. Hope this helps someone else get their OS shell back the way they want it.