Windows 7 - Making the Taskbar Thinner on the Left Side

Currently when moving the taskbar to the left side, the thinnest you can make it is to have 2 system icons side by side on the bottom. I'm trying to get the taskbar to have show only 1 system icon. I've discovered through trial and error a way to have this happen but it isn't a permanent fix.

Here are the steps:
1.) Make the taskbar as thin as it will go normally.
2.) Lock the taskbar, turn on auto-hide, and turn on small icons
3.) Open up a full screen game. (I've only had it work with War3-Frozen Throne and Starcraft. Didn't work with CS:S)
4.) Close the game and the bar should be thin.

What is normally there:



What I want to make permanent:


I hope I was clear enough for someone to find a solution.

Hello AznSanta.

It seems like a bug, indeed.

However, since you found a workaround to make it get that thin, maybe you could preserve it. I believe what causes it to refresh is your clock.
As you can see, there is no space for the clock after it's thinned, so it's stuffed and garbled.

Try disabling the clock or setting it to show less data, e.g. no date.
You can turn clock on or off under customize notification area - turn icons on or off link at the bottom.

However, it stills seems like a bug because even without any clock , the taskbar doesn't get thinner. I just thought it might stay like this after your "trick" if it doesn't show any clock.

Try that and let us know.

Cheers

After turning off the clock and restarting, the taskbar is still restored to it's proper size. I guess using the method I found isn't too much to do anyways.

thanks for the little trick, I wish there was a more permanent way though

Thanks for the replies everyone. It's a shame there is no way to achieve this, as that fat taskbar takes up a lot of real estate on a normal monitor. Perhaps, once we get a final build, someone will create a nice new skin with a small start menu and a skinny taskbar...

So now that 7 is out does anyone have any idea or theme that can make this permanent?

any progress on this?

What build are you using? The final build is out.
Sorry I didn't see the date on your post.

how can you see what build you use ? also what's the final build called?

Type System Information in start menu.