Windows 7: minimised window fills up the whole taskbar

1. With even one window being opened in my laptop, and it being minimized, the width of the window occupies the whole taskbar. My OS is Windows 7 Professional. I definitely remember that this was not the case in Windows XP. Can someone suggest how can I reduce the window width so that it occupies a reasonabley small space in taskbar. I have attached an image (Taskbar 1.jpg) showing my toolbar
2. Note: If the number of windows is more in taskbar, then the width of windows is automatically adjust to a smaller width, which looks neat.

can you try moving the taskbar anywhere else but the bottom, like the top. To do this unlock the taskbar by right clicking and unchecking lock taskbar, then you can move the taskbar to the left of the screen, right, and top.

I'll start by first talking about WinXP.

In WinXP, you could configure the taskbar by first right-clicking on it and then clicking on the "lock taskbar" item (which had a checkmark to indicate it was locked). This would unlock the taskbar, and you could move it, resize it, reorganize it, etc.

Now the standard WinXP taskbar was what I call "1 unit in height", and everything was on just one row. That meant the Quicklaunch area, as well as the active task rectangles... all in one row.

But with the taskbar unlocked you could alter that appearance and behavior. You could for example "pull" the upper-edge of the taskbar up, until the taskbar was now "2 units in height". This now allowed for TWO rows of items, arranged in either of two formats: (1) all Quicklaunch icons on the top row, and all active task rectangles on the bottom row, or (2) all Quicklaunch icons in a 2-row collection on the left side of the double-high taskbar, and all active rectangles in a 2-row collection on the right side of the double-high taskbar.

If you used the (2) arrangement above, and you had your taskbar "unlocked", you'd see a vertical dotted line separating that left section (for the Quicklaunch items) and the right section (for the active task rectangles).

If you wanted to alter your taskbar presentation in this double-high format, you would first unlock the taskbar, and then drag that dotted-line separator either left or right or up or down (it never was really clear to me what I was doing, so I would just fool around until I got it the way I really wanted it).

When that dotted line turned into a "separated dotted line, with a short dotted line on top and then a small space and that a second short dotted line underneath) you had accomplished the 2-row presentation with Quicklaunch icons on the top row and active task rectangles on the bottom row.

With the dotted line "solid vertical", as one dotted line, you had accomplished the left/right presentation.

Then, you'd again right-click on the taskbar, and click on the "lock taskbar", and the dotted lines would disappear and your designated presentation would now become permanent.


Ok... back to Windows 7 and your issue.

I never knew you could even do what you've done, which appears to resemble the "left/right" presentation of a double-high taskbar in WinXP. All of what appear to be like a Quicklaunch icon area in WinXP is on the left of your Windows 7 taskbar, with the active rectangles appearing on the right.

I didn't know this could even be done. It certainly is not what the normal Windows 7 double-high taskbar presentation looks like when assorted program items are "pinned to taskbar".

In normal double-high taskbar format, it's simply a continuous set of icons and rectangles occupying the two rows as needed. There is no collection of icons on the left (in 2 rows, as yours shows) and then "active" rectangles on the right (which in your case has oddly filled the entire top row).

Do you have any modifications to the taskbar? Are you running some 3rd-party modification? Any customization from some "how to" tutorial, as to how to get what looks like the old WinXP Quicklaunch bar into Windows 7?

I run my own taskbar also as double-high, as you do. But I do not have any Quicklaunch-like WinXP-like customization. It's standard Windows 7 format, just unlocked and dragged to double-height and then locked.

It looks as follows:

Does it do that when you resize the taskbar down to single line instead of double size?

I've somewhat gotten my taskbar to look like yours here but the only difference you seem to have is that instead of minimizing the name of the IE page (minimised win...) it gives it's full name thus filling the whole taskbar.

Thanks everyone for taking time and replying back.

@BTNH108464 - I tried to move the taskbar to left, right, top
results -
minimized window filling the taskbar when it is at bottom or top
minimized window does not fill the taskbar when it is at left or right.
Attached - taskbar_top.jpg, taskbar_right.jpg

@FliGi7 - Remains the same even with a single line size of taskbar

@dsperber - I do not have any 3rd party tools right now that I have installed. It plain Windows 7 Professional that I come. Things which I have are these
a) All the icons that came by default like library folder or whatever, I unpinned them from taskbar, so that I do not see them any longer.
b) taskbar apperance - use small items, taskar buttons - never combine
c) added a new toolbar with folder name as - "C:\Users\ldixit\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch", and added the items shortcut which I wanted in my toolbar
Here is the link
Add the Quick Launch Bar to the Taskbar in Windows 7 - How-To Geek

@Irishman - Sorry I couldnt understand the meaning of your text. I actually want to have my taskbar look like yours. Your minimised window is not filling the entire taskbar and that's exactly what I want. May I know how have you done it.
Thanks
Lavesh
PS: I have not been able to resolve this still

What I mean is that in your screenshot it shows a minimized IE window with its full name displayed (Sourceforge.net: Classic Shell: Topic: Feature request: right click popup – Windows internet explorer) instead of just showing part of the name (Sourceforge.net…) thus the minimized window is stretched out.
These are the steps I took to get my taskbar looking as it was;

· Right click the task bar and go to properties
· Under “Taskbar appearance” click “Use small icons” and then uncheck “Lock task bar”
· Pull the taskbar up one level
· Right click the taskbar again and go to toolbars then add which ever toolbar you want
· You can then drag that toolbar anywhere on the taskbar
· Try switching between “Always combine, hide labels” and “Never combine” in the taskbar properties screen to see if that helps your original issue

These two statements are at odds with each other.

This is EXACTLY what I meant when I asked "Do you have any modifications to the taskbar? Are you running some 3rd-party modification? Any customization from some "how to" tutorial, as to how to get what looks like the old WinXP Quicklaunch bar into Windows 7?"

Apparently, the answer is YES... not NO.

It appears you actually DID try to restore the appearance of the WinXP QuickLaunch bar to Windows 7... using this "How-to Geek" tutorial.

Just as I feared.

I would suggest asking on that other source forum for help, in exactly how you can now back out that modification and get back to true Windows 7 standard Aero taskbar appearance and behavior.

Or, perhaps if the installation of that modification was simply the addition of the \QuickLaunch folder in your \Users\<username>\Appdata\Roaming folder, perhaps just deleting it now will get you back to "normal" Windows 7 taskbar appearance and behavior. Worth a try, it seems to me.

Thanks Irishman and dsperber for ur replies. My problem got solved. It was actually a registry entry that had got corrupted.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics\MinWidth. This tells the min width (in pixels) which ur active windows will have in ur taskbar. i was having a very low value 20, anything less than 38 and it behaves weird. I set it to 150 and I get the width the way I wanted.
Apparently nothing to do with adding the quick launch to the taskbar.
Thanks all.

Thank you for posting back the solution, glad it got sorted out.